Brie Larson is not one to shy away from a great workout, but she’s taking her wellness to the next level with cold exposure. The 34-year-old actress shared a funny video of herself walking into a freezing Alo Yoga cryo chamber, wearing a black two piece workout outfit and black cowboy boots. “Cowboy boots are always appropriate 🤠,” she jokingly captioned the post. Here’s what else Larson does to take care of her health, wellness, and happiness.
Larson transformed her body with intense resistance training when preparing for her Captain Marvel role. “I affectionately called myself ‘an introvert with asthma’ before I got to play Carol Danvers and I started training first out of sheer panic, because I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, Marvel doesn’t know that I don’t even know how to walk up a hill without being out of breath.’ So, I started this journey thinking I’ll get strong and I had no idea. I went far beyond what I ever believed was possible for my body,” she told Insider. “Being able to hip thrust 400 pounds, deadlift 200 pounds, push my trainer’s Jeep, I mean, it’s an incredible experience to realize what’s inside of you is well beyond what you knew was possible.”
Larson leaned into fun beauty routines during the pandemic lockdowns. “For so much of my life, my hair and makeup routine has been me just sitting there,” she tells InStyle. “Whether I’m on a movie [set] or doing press, someone usually else does it. This is the first time in a really long time where it was all on me. I started this YouTube channel and I was like, ‘Oh man, I need to put makeup on.’ It’s felt really good to do, even if the only outing I get is to the grocery store. I can put on lipstick and then put on a mask, and that lip is just for me. I get a little bit of pleasure out of the fact that I can care for myself however I want and it’s truly just mine.”
Larson works hard and has long hours on set, so it’s important to her that she at least look rested even when she isn’t. “I’ve always had a skin-care routine,” she tells Vogue. “My personal routine is very simple, mostly because I’m a little lazy, but the other part is because it allows my skin a bit of recharging and breathing… People need to know that I’m doing the impossible with ease!” She swears by using an ice roller to depuff under her eyes. “This is heaven to me. I have to travel a lot for work, so finding tricks like this that allow me to feel like I have a bit of ritual—taking care of myself [without] a big lift—is lovely.”
Larson makes time in the evenings for self-care. “I have started winding down once the sun starts to set,” she tells W Magazine. “It’s also my cue to start cooking dinner, go into the garden—that’s how it starts. I’ve been burning frankincense in the house too, because it not only smells great, but it’s great for cleansing the air in the house; it’s antimicrobial. I’ve also been trying to watch a movie every night. Sometimes I’ll do some breathing exercises, or I’ll meditate if I’ve had a particularly stressful day. For me, it’s about what can I do that is transitional out of work into decompressing time, because when you’re at home all day I feel it’s very easy to let everything stick and hang on to you. It’s about knowing what’s the routine and what’s the ritual to get out of that.”
Larson refuses to be bound by arbitrary beauty standards. “I struggled with feeling ugly and like an outcast for so much of my life,” she tells W Magazine. “And so I really, really feel for that. It took me a long time to be able to be totally comfortable with myself. The thing that has brought me solace is knowing that I can be whoever I want to be with myself. What breaks my heart is to think of people in the world who don’t feel that they have safety within their own bodies. That, to me, is my ultimate goal in life: to do whatever it is that I can so people have the freedom to express themselves and be exactly who it is that they want to be—whatever that is—knowing that that can also change.”