Jennifer Lopez has been a prominent figure in the entertainment industry for decades, and at the age of 53, she is still as active and vibrant as ever. Lopez has been open about the importance of self-care in maintaining her healthy lifestyle, and she recently spoke to PEOPLE about the topic in an exclusive interview.
Lopez emphasized that for her, a healthy lifestyle is all about self-care. This includes working out regularly with consistency, taking care of her skin, and focusing on meditating and taking care of her mind, body, and soul. She noted that it all starts with the basics, such as getting enough sleep and drinking lots of water.
Lopez said that when something feels off, she always checks the basics first. “I always feel like, okay, if I’m feeling too tired, what am I neglecting? Am I neglecting my sleep? Am I not working out consistently? Have I let that go? Do I need to get back on that? Whatever it is, or am I not drinking enough water? Why do I feel this way? If something’s off, just check the basics, and for me, that always works,” she explained.
However, she acknowledged that it can be hard to make sure that the basics are taken care of on a daily basis because people get busy and bogged down with life. But letting go of one thing can lead to more things going wrong, so she tries to remember that if she’s not right, nothing goes right.
Lopez also spoke about her new alcohol brand, Delola, which offers lower-calorie cocktails made with ingredients like elderflower, hibiscus, and passionfruit. Each serving has roughly 110 calories or less, while containing about the same ABV as a glass of wine. The brand features ready-made spritzes, each containing a different spirit. The Bella Berry is made with vodka, the Paloma Rosa has tequila, and the L’orange features an amaro base. The 750ml bottle retails for $23, and the 375ml is $12.
Lopez said she loved the idea of creating something a little more healthy and to her taste with healthier ingredients and being gluten-free. She collaborated with industry experts Ken Austin and Jenna Fagnan, along with renowned mixologist Lynnette Marrero, to curate the lower-calorie cocktails.
In her On the JLo newsletter released in July 2022, Lopez opened up about finding a healthier lifestyle after experiencing severe panic attacks in her late 20s, which were brought on by exhaustion. “There was a time in my life where I used to sleep three to five hours a night. I’d be on set all day and in the studio all night and doing junkets and filming videos on the weekends. I was in my late 20s and I thought I was invincible,” she wrote.
“Until one day, I was sitting in a trailer, and all the work and the stress it brought with it, coupled with not enough sleep to recuperate mentally, caught up with me. I was completely frozen. I couldn’t see clearly, and the physical symptoms started to scare me, and the fear compounded itself. Now I know it was a classic panic attack brought on by exhaustion, but I had never even heard the term at the time.”
Lopez visited her doctor, who told her that the panic attack was caused because she wasn’t getting enough sleep (seven to nine hours to be exact), and that she needed to get her “workouts in” if she was planning to “do this much work.” Lopez explained that she “let my own self-care needs go completely” as she prioritized work during a time in