Mariska Hargitay may have just turned 61, but she certainly doesn’t feel like it.
In a 2024 interview with FIRST (per Yahoo! Entertainment), the longtime Law & Order: Special Victims Unit star — who was 60 at the time — revealed she’s feeling the best she’s ever felt, but it isn’t by accident. Hargitay has a simple key to feeling great these days that everyone should consider implementing into their lives!
“I do a bunch of brain games that they say will keep you sharp, like little hand exercises where I tap my fingers,” Hargitay revealed.
The exercises involve rhythmically tapping your fingers in a specific sequence, which many believe helps improve focus and hand-eye coordination, while generally keeping your brain in tip-top shape. Of course, this activity isn’t the only way Hargitay ensures she feels her best at all times:
“Being engaged and having to learn lines also helps, because the brain is just a muscle, right?” she said.
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She’s right, nothing gives the brain a better workout than memorizing lines (for over 25 years) in one of television’s longest-running and most beloved series ever!
Later in the interview, Hargitay stressed the importance of not prioritizing heart health in general, and revealed she incorporates several mindful activities in addition to her finger-tapping exercises into her day-to-day:
“And as we get older, you cannot over-emphasize the importance of heart health, which contributes to brain health,” Hargitay explained. “Exercise is key. I also eat and sleep well. That last one’s hard. Somebody told me to stretch before bed, and that helps. So does putting down the phone earlier – another tough one!”
(Somebody tell Martha Stewart about that last piece of wellness advice — the star once famously admitted she has a bad habit of being glued to screens in bed!)
Mariska Hargitay reveals her real-life “superpower”
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On June 29, 1967, Hargitay’s mother, actress Jayne Mansfield, tragically died in a car accident outside of New Orleans. Mansfield was seated in the front of the car at the time of the accident while three of her children — including Hargitay, only three years old — were sleeping in the back.
Although Hargitay and her brothers survived the crash, the effects of the tragedy are still felt by the star nearly six decades later. In a 2021 interview with Glamour, Hargitay revealed that although she lives with the pain of losing her mother at an early age, it’s given her the strength she didn’t know she needed. Hargitay calls it her “superpower.”
“I think I learned about crisis very young, and I learned very young that shit happens and there’s no guarantees, and we keep going. And then we transform it,” she said. “That’s been kind of my superpower, and the gift of having trauma early in life.”
