• Chris Curle, 77, does yoga and walks daily.
• She shared her tips for staying active and healthy into older age with Business Insider.
• These include going on field trips and not letting age hold you back.

A 77-year-old who does yoga and goes on daily walks shared three things that she believes have helped her stay healthy and active with Business Insider.

Chris Curle and her husband, Don Farmer, were anchors on CNN for a decade. When they retired in 1997, they moved from Atlanta to Florida to be close to her aging parents and nature. Farmer died in 2021, and Curle now lives at the Vi at Bentley Village senior living community in Naples, Florida.

Curle does yoga classes twice a week at the community's fitness center and walks at least a mile every day, she told Business Insider. Bentley Village is set over 150 acres of land, some of which is a reserve, so she sees all kinds of animals, including alligators, bears, coyotes, bobcats, and raccoons, on her walks.

Shai Efrati, a doctor specializing in longevity and an associate professor at Tel Aviv University, previously told BI that staying active is one key to healthy aging, alongside other basics of longevity such as limiting ultra-processed foods.

Here are Curle's other simple tips.

Go on field trips

"You have to have a lot of curiosity and maintain that your whole life," Curle said. To do this, she goes on lots of "field trips" — half or full-day excursions to local attractions similar to the ones she used to do at school.

"Every community has something interesting nearby or something to do or something to learn," she said. She's been to local botanical gardens, museums, nature reserves, ranches, and festivals. She often takes friends along with her — although she's never afraid to go alone, she said.

Staying curious was a common trait among centenarians who participated in a 2023 study by researchers at the Complutense University of Madrid.

Stay mentally active

"Staying active and keeping your body and your brain working, that seems to be the formula the experts provide" for longevity, Curle said.

Curle learns new skills, including Tai Chi, and attends lectures at a local university on topics such as history, entertainment, and tech.

Keeping the mind active and learning new skills is thought to be one of the keys to longevity, Heidi Tissenbaum, a professor of biology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School who researches healthspan, previously told BI. This is because doing new things creates pathways in the brain, which keeps it active and healthy.

You're only as old as you feel

"When you're 77, the mirror says something entirely different from how you feel inside," Curle said. "But go with whatever your brain thinks your age is. And celebrate every birthday because it's better than the alternative!"

A 2022 study published in JAMA Network Open found that adults over 50 who thought more positively about aging had a 43% lower risk of dying of any cause than people who were less satisfied by their aging. They were also more likely to do frequent physical activity and less likely to be lonely.

• Every night between 5 and 7 p.m., my two little ones would hit an emotional wall.
• We started going on a walk with them every evening, and it helped so much.
• Adding a walk to our routine helps our family connect, and helps ease them into bedtime.

As a parent to two little ones, I dread what many call the "witching hour," the time between 5 and 7 p.m. when my 2-year-old and 4-year-old hit a wall, and I crash land behind them. When I was a new parent, the meltdowns, demands, and emotional dysregulation of my babies used to force me to revert to babyhood myself. I'd also become tearful and distraught. I even started to develop noticeable anxiety leading up to that specific time of day.

That is until I began implementing a tried-and-true parenting hack in our evening routine: a change of scenery. Yes, when my kids reached toddlerhood and turned into puddles on the floor — made of tears and flaccid bodies — I decided to switch up our environment and head outside, hoping to ease the blow of that anxiety-inducing time of day.

Our routine is important to me

We started our routine years ago, but after the disruptive summer schedule and a hurricane that made walking outdoors unsafe, our walks were put on pause for a time. I decided to re-commence our evening walks once power lines had been repaired and fallen trees removed, and as expected, there was some pushback from my preschoolers. The unwillingness to comply was a challenge. Simple acts of putting on shoes, jackets, and hats were akin to those of the trials and tribulations of a hero in a Greek myth.

But what I have found to be effective in decreasing both the length and intensity of their own emotional reactions is to speak about new habits as an exciting addition to our already-established routine.

When we return home from school pick-up, I allow my kids to watch one (or two, depending on how much time I need in the kitchen for dinner prep) episodes of a children's show. Once our meal is in the oven or turned to simmer, I announce, "It's time for our evening walk!" Then, I remind them that our evening walk is "what we do every day now, so that we can enjoy the last hour of sunshine before the moon rises and tells us that it's time to rest our bodies."

And now, as the temperatures drop and the sun sets earlier in the day, I make it a point to gear up my kids as early as possible. In the middle of the transition from indoors to outdoors, I say, "Remember, this is how we take care of our minds and our bodies."

We go for walks no matter the season, and they help us all feel better

And though we still have days where one or two or all of us are feeling out-of-sorts during the witching hour, I find our evening walk to be the spell we all need: the thing that breaks the curse and grants us the freedom to disconnect from the stresses of our day and reconnect with one another, our community, and our natural world.

During our stroll, I put my phone away. I allow my kids to choose the route, and I resist the urge to fill the air with my words. I listen. I hold their hands. I participate in their play. We say hello to our neighbors. My girls pass on treats — handed to them by other dog owners — to satisfy their furry children. We pay attention to the "treasures" that will undoubtedly appear along our path: colorful fall leaves, in-tact acorns, shiny rocks, or "really cool" tree branches.

By the time we've made our loop around the neighborhood and return home, we all feel much better. It's become the best part of my day and one I'm hellbent on practicing, even into the darkest winter months.