At the 45th anniversary of John Lennon's December 1980 death, the ways his iconic partner has stayed so active and resilient—including her favorite dish.
Yoko Ono has long been one of the most misunderstood, yet influential, artists of the last century. In his book, Yoko: A Biography (Simon & Schuster, March 2025), David Sheff unravels the identity of the woman who survived wartime scarcity in Tokyo, pioneered avant-garde art ahead of the mainstream, and navigated decades of public scrutiny.
Her 1969 marriage to John Lennon amplified her visibility, activism, and the controversies that surrounded her. For years she was cast as rock’s most infamous villain, but over time, she reclaimed her image. She’s now recognized not only as Lennon’s long-widowed partner, but also a groundbreaking artist and activist.
In 2020, Elliot Mintz, a friend of Ono for nearly 50 years, told The New York Post: “She is as sharp as she once was.” Anticipating her 93rd birthday in February, we examined how the mother of two has stayed so active all these years. While she’s been documented having picked up smoking in her 30s (reportedly around the time she met Lennon), she’s said to have quit the habit 15 years later. Sources also say all she drinks these days are coffee, tea, and sparkling water.
Other subtle details you’ll note: for decades, she’s protected her eyes and skin with sunglasses and wide-brimmed hats, and appears to be a longtime fan of super-comfortable shoes—even right here below, on her March 1969 wedding day.
She embraces forgiveness
Yoko Ono has been no stranger to controversy. From her relationship with John Lennon (and the rumors her influence broke up The Beatles—gossip that’s since been debunked by band members) to her ahead-of-its-time, unconventional style, the artist has admitted she struggled with the criticism targeting her relationship and career. She’s also revealed she realized forgiveness is more powerful than anger.
“The whole world hated me so much,” she shared in a 2004 personal essay for The Times UK. “If I am angry, it creates a poison in me. So, before I sleep I say ‘Bless…’ and the first name that comes to me. It’s usually the person hurting you.” She said these “blessings: are a “strange kind of equaliser” that calm her nerves and send her into a deep, restorative sleep.
Research backs her up. For one, a 2023 study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found that practicing forgiveness improves mental health and life satisfaction—and it’s also tied to better physical health.
She takes a daily bath
Ono has shared taking a bath as a long-standing personal tradition. “It’s a ritual,” she writes. “I don’t soak a long time: I just submerge myself. I float for that moment, free of gravity.”
According to the Cleveland Clinic, Ono’s soaking routine is a powerful one. It points to research showing that warm baths lower stress hormones, boost levels of serotonin (your “happiness hormone”), help you sleep better, and soothe aching joints and muscles.
She practices gratitude
Ono’s daily bath is tied to another self-care habit: thanksgiving. She writes that as she’s floating in the water, she’s washed over with such relaxation that she finds herself saying, Thank you.
“To start a day with ‘Thank you’ makes a difference,” she wrote in The Times. “Every day I’m thankful I have a beautiful son and daughter and an apartment I love. My childhood was during the war, going from place to place, and even now I think: ‘It is so great that I have a roof over my head and that I’ve been here so long.'”
Research consistently links gratitude with improved well-being. A first-of-its-kind 2024 JAMA Psychiatry study adds longevity to the list, finding that people who practice gratitude have a 9% lower risk of death from any cause.
She does one thing every day to “make her heart dance”
Ono has been candid about struggling with depression. As friend and biographer, David Sheff, explains in Yoko: A Biography, “Her aloofness came to be seen as arrogance, but it masked a deep longing and sadness.”
Sheff describes how Ono’s childhood lacked joy and connection—it was all about survival, as she was just eight years old when World War II hit Japan. Throughout the decades, her trauma would resurface. In The Times, she described the extreme psychological toll of Lennon’s death—and the one change that helped her through this time.
“That’s when I had the idea that every day you have to do something to make your heart dance. It could just be looking at the sky,” she writes. “And on the days when you can’t even let your heart dance, because you are in a very heavy situation or too depressed, you have to do something to let other people’s hearts dance.”
She eats simply, with small indulgences
Ono has said that she doesn’t pay much attention to diet trends, but relies more on an intuitive eating style. “You should eat when you’re hungry, eat what you want and not very much,” she says in an interview with The Times. She also doesn’t eat past 8 P.M., she told The Telegraph. (Regular fasting has been showing to contribute to longevity, in part by prompting the body to adapt itself and utilize different metabolic fuels.)
Speaking with Edible Manhattan, in 2010 she pointed to her Japanese background as a key influence on her eating habits. “I don’t eat quantity. I don’t crave for big fat steak, for instance,” she said. “Just a little bowl of rice and kimchi will do for my lunch. Kimchi is my favorite thing.”
In general, she’s said she mostly follows a plant-based diet. Both Lennon and Ono are known for their activism, including advocating for animal rights. “I can’t stand how we are treating the animals,” she told Edible Manhattan. “I eat fish off and on. But actually, I feel the best when I am just eating good, fresh vegetables.”
The memory of her late husband sparked a love for one simple indulgence: “John loved chocolate, I didn’t. But after his passing, I went for chocolate, and I liked it. Now, I’m trying not to eat too much of it.”
She relied on daily walking—and now turns to nature
Another simple habit Ono has credited for her longevity is daily walking. She told The Times how she built movement into her everyday life—taking the stairs, walking to dinner, visiting her son uptown. Whenever she felt less fit, “that gooey, sticky feeling,” as she describes, she’d add on an extra half-hour on the treadmill every day.
Even as recently as 2023, Ono wrote on X: “There’s something I do to get out of depression. I walk about 80 city blocks. That gives me a real high.”
Now at 92, there are reports that Ono’s mobility has declined. She recently left New York City after 50 years to live on a rural upstate New York farm, trading long daily city walks for immersing herself in quiet nature. That said, living in a city has been associated with higher quality of life in the later years, for access to socialization, good foods, and walkability.
She prioritized creativity
Ono made waves throughout her career pushing artistic boundaries. While today, she’s celebrated as a pioneering figure in the arts, some of her most influential work was initially met with criticism, misunderstanding, or even backlash. Her performance Cut Piece was considered too provocative; her book Grapefruit was dismissed as nonsensical; her film Film No. 4 (Bottoms)—depicting people’s butts on screen—was widely mocked and even banned in some places.
But negative reactions never deflated the artist. Ono consistently stayed true to her value of creative expression. “People’s reactions to my work aren’t necessarily important—it’s fine if they have different opinions. If their response is good, then I feel good, but what I create has to do more with myself,” she said in an interview with Oprah.com. “Experiencing sadness and anger can make you feel more creative, and by being creative, you can get beyond your pain or negativity,” she added. “When I express myself, I feel free.”
Ono’s creative mindset didn’t just keep her demons at bay. A 2025 study published in Nature Communications found that creativity may delay brain aging. The researchers found that highly creative people had brains that appeared younger, with stronger function in regions most vulnerable to age-related decline.
She rose above negativity
The 2024 documentary One to One: John & Yoko highlights a speech Ono delivered at Harvard University in 1973, addressing the intense pressure she felt to stay in the background of Lennon’s career. At one point, she developed a stutter from the stress of believing “the whole society wished me dead.”
Her response? In 1974, she released the song “Yes, I’m a Witch.” As she explained to Vanity Fair, “They were saying I was a witch. So I turned around and said, “SO WHAT?” It’s the rebel in me at work. But if I was not a rebel, I would have been squashed a long time ago.”
Even today, Ono finds grace and power in rising above negativity. In a podcast with Getty, she speaks about “shaking hands with people we don’t like” as an important gesture toward world peace. “We have to think in terms of unity.”
She stays positive about the world
Yoko Ono spent decades channeling her energy into activism, from her antiwar “Bed-In for Peace” with Lennon to her public art projects urging people to “Imagine Peace.” Even now, she remains strikingly optimistic about the world’s potential for progress.
As she told Oprah.com, “John and I thought our bed-in for peace [in 1969] would transform things—we weren’t patient at all. But now I know that you have to be. You can’t always measure the effects of activist work; you just have to wish and pray that the message gets through. Luckily, I think most people are activists now—it’s a very beautiful age, when we’re starting to become more aware that we have to work together to make things better.”
Ono’s core belief in a better future is a powerful mindset. Research published in a 2025 issue of Aging & Mental Health examined nearly 13,000 older adults, finding that an optimistic attitude enhances health and well-being while reducing the risk of mortality.
She practices mindfulness
Yoko Ono has long approached life as a mindfulness practice. For decades, her conceptual works—from her “instruction pieces” collected in Grapefruit to her meditative Sky installation—have focused on the power of presence and awareness.
While mindfulness is reflected in her art, Ono also described to Oprah.com how it shows up in her daily life: “Years ago, I was walking in Central Park with a friend, and he said, ‘You’re slowing down; you must be thinking about something.’ And I was… I realized that if my thoughts immediately affect my body, I should be careful about what I think.”
But instead of suppressing thoughts and emotions, she transforms them. “If I get angry, I ask myself why… and turn that negative energy into something positive.” Even through the grief of Lennon’s death, she says she practiced smiling every day until it finally felt genuine again. This pattern of self-awareness, emotional honesty, and intentional reframing is key to Ono’s ability to stay grounded and resilient as she’s aged.
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