Jane Fonda shares mental health tip for getting older
Jane Fonda is one of the last of the great Hollywood studio system stars and she has reinvented herself numerous times, with each iteration focusing on one key attribute: action.
Whether that’s actor Jane, activist Jane, workout Jane, or climate change Jane, the key to her success has always been to keep moving. To this extent it may come as no surprise that she revealed her key tip to mental wellbeing while getting older. In a recent interview with Self, the Hollywood veteran shared her philosophy about the connection between staying active and staying positive. And clearly, it’s working for her. The trim and terrific actress seems to be everywhere all at once and juggling multiple projects with aplomb.
She has an astonishing schedule — she is currently playing in the film feature 80 For Brady with Moving On coming up and then just in time for Mother’s Day, Book Club: The Next Chapter. And her behind-the-scenes patronage of the diverse and feminist Women’s Media Center. And she has always been a gay ally! Then there’s her trendy paid partnership with H&M.
Fonda recently posted to her official Instagram account: “H&M Move is really focused on getting the whole world moving, something I’ve spent a lot of my own life doing. I also really liked their philosophy of ‘movewear’ over ‘sportswear’ because it’s a good reminder that it doesn’t matter how much you move or what kind of movement you’re doing, so long as you just keep on moving.”
The 85-year-old actor, two-time Oscar winner and climate activist uses social media to get the message out to her 2.1 million followers: Stay active and keep moving. is constantly encouraging her 2.1 million Instagram followers to stay active. At a recent event hosted by H&M in New York City, she said: “I didn’t know that [exercise] was important to do ’til I was in my 30s,” she said, according to People magazine. “It wasn’t until my late 30s, early 40s that I started to actually become active. Life before I was active wasn’t nearly as good as when I started to move.”
Fonda has previously spoken about drinking, smoking, and an eating disorder, bulimia, that was so bad she didn’t think she’d live past her 30s because of it. “I was very, very unhappy,” she said.
“I come from a long line of really depressed people,” she said, “and the best way to fight depression is to keep moving.”
But when she started prioritizing exercise, she noticed her mental health improve. Today, the connection between movement, exercise, and mental health is commonplace, but in 1982, when Fonda launched her bestselling VHS series, The Original Jane Fonda Workout, this was quite the discovery. The somewhat unlikely exercise guru today still prizes a life in action, including turning up wherever needed to get her message across.
In early September last year, Fonda announced she’d been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma but by the end of 2022 said the cancer was in remission.
