Kristen Bell Turns 39 Today—Here’s Why She Hasn’t Aged in a Decade

From Prevention

• Kristen Bell posted a hilarious Instagram video yesterday, asking her kids how old they think she's turning.

• Bell turns 39 years old today, but doesn't look a day older than 29.

• Bell leads a healthy lifestyle by eating a plant-based diet and following a skincare and fitness regimen. Find out her age-defying secrets.

It's hard to believe that Kristen Bell turns 39 years old today. The Veronica Mars actress still looks as fresh and youthful as she did over a decade ago when the show started, but her kids think otherwise. In a hilarious Instagram video she posted yesterday, Bell is barefaced and asks her daughters, Delta and Lincoln, how old they think she's turning. Their response: 63 and 89—not the answer we would have given! And as for what husband, Dax Shephard, had to say? He guessed that his wife is turning 71.

Jokes aside, Bell doesn't look a day older than 29, and it's because she leads an extremely healthy lifestyle. Here's exactly what Bell does to stay so fit for her age.

She embraces a plant-based diet

After being vegan for over five years, Bell switched to a vegetarian diet in late 2017 after feeling like the diet wasn't sustainable for her long-term. However, she still claims the vegan diet has ample benefits. "I think being vegan is a wonderful way to live and it has great effects on the body," she told Today. "I also think it has really good effects on the environment." Plant-based diets are shown to help you maintain a healthy weight and reduce your risk for many chronic health problems like heart disease and diabetes; plus, they do wonders for your skin. So it's no surprise that many celebs, like Bell, Carrie Underwood, and Meghan Markle, choose to go vegan or vegetarian.

These days, Bell still doesn't touch meat, but enjoys dairy and eggs as long as she knows they're humanely raised. For breakfast, her go-to is egg whites and spinach with feta and hot sauce, while lunch is usually a salad with any fruit and veggies she can find, including those she grows right in her garden, she told Shape. Bell also makes sure she's getting enough protein to supplement her vegetarian diet, so she finds little swaps—like pasta made from chickpeas and peas—to keep her diet balanced and nutritious.

She makes skincare a priority

No matter how hectic her life gets, Bell carves out time to give her skin a little love. "I never go to bed with makeup on. I double-cleanse at night and use a wipe before I wash my face," she told Shape. After removing her makeup, she uses a pore-clarifying cleanser with her Clarisonic brush, a beauty tool that's recommended by many dermatologists to help remove debris from pores without irritating the skin. In an interview with ELLE, she described her skincare routine as an act of self-care: "When my kids go to bed, and I wash my face and prep for bedtime and put my moisturizer on, it feels like I'm loving myself a little bit. It's something I do that's just for me, and it makes me feel great."

Bell also swears by coconut oil, which is shown to have many beneficial uses for your hair, skin, and face. The actress told ELLE she often uses coconut oil as a body moisturizer and turns it into a body scrub by adding brown sugar and honey. "It's a great exfoliant for my elbows and knees and arms," she said.

Unsurprisingly, Bell is also religious about sunscreen use, which we already know is key to slowing down aging. "I love the sun, but it is not my friend, so applying sunscreen every morning is probably the most practical part of my beauty routine."

She meditates on a regular basis

Meditation is proven to have many benefits—more restorative sleep, fewer stress cravings, weight loss—and Bell can definitely attest to that. "Meditation makes me feel more rested than a full night's sleep," she told Live Happy magazine. "I do transcendental meditation a couple times a week and have a mantra that I repeat in a still, calm position. I really enjoy powering down for 20 minutes because it’s like shutting off light switches in my brain. I should make more time for it, but meditating even a couple times a week makes a big difference in my stress and happiness levels." Constant stress is proven to physically and mentally age you faster, so a little meditation goes a long way.

She's always on the move

Even if she can't make it to the gym, Bell finds ways to stay active every day, whether it's following a 10-minute workout video on YouTube or playing with her kids. "Just getting moving in any way, whether it's taking a walk with them or running around on their bikes in the driveway with them. So then my body just doesn't feel stagnant," she told Self.

Bell is the master of multi-tasking and gets creative to squeeze exercise into her schedule. "At work, while I'm running through lines with my fellow actors, I'll be leaning backward on a chair doing triceps dips," she told Shape. She embraces short, high-intensity workouts, like sprinting up and down her driveway 10 or 15 times, which takes her roughly 15 minutes. When she does make it to a workout class, Pilates and indoor cycling are her go-to activities.

Finding ways to be active outside of work can be tricky for many women, but Bell is a huge advocate for micro-workouts and setting tiny goals you can actually reach. "I find if I can make tiny bargains with myself, I can incrementally move forward. Like I will say, 'Today all you have to do is jog for seven minutes.' 'Today all you have to do is jog for 10 minutes.' And I rarely go past 15 or 20, if ever," she told Women's Health. "If you give yourself realistic, attainable goals, you can totally achieve them—and that sense of triumph will make your workout feel even better."

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