Oprah Winfrey
Talk show host and producer · The Oprah Winfrey Show
Host of the syndicated talk show that ran for 25 seasons, founder of OWN and of O, The Oprah Magazine, and of a book club now past its 110th pick. Much of her routine is on the record in her own writing: the What I Know for Sure column ran monthly in O for fourteen years, and she hosts The Oprah Podcast now. She takes quiet time once or twice a day, kept a gratitude journal for a decade, reads something inspiring before anything else in the morning, and since knee surgery in 2021 she hikes, lifts and walks.
- Entries
- 20
- Does
- 16
- Recommends
- 4
- Discusses
- 0
Books
4 books in this stack
- BookRecommends$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Build the Life You Want
She contacted the Harvard happiness researcher Arthur Brooks during the pandemic and proposed writing it together. The pitch is that happiness runs on knowledge rather than willpower, and that your reaction to a bad hand is something you get to choose. Her own site carries the introduction.
Source: Oprah.com: Read an Excerpt from Build the Life You WantView item: Build the Life You WantOn record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 recommends it - BookRecommends$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
The Underground Railroad
Picked it for her book club in 2016 having never read Colson Whitehead before. The first sentence hooked her, she wrote, and she describes finding herself feeling what Cora feels and being horrified by slavery all over again.
Source: Oprah.com: Oprah Talks to The Underground Railroad Author Colson WhiteheadView item: The Underground RailroadOn record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 recommends it - BookRecommends$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
The Wisdom of Sundays
She went through more than 200 hours of Super Soul tape herself to build it, and says revisiting each conversation reinspired her. Her prayer, she wrote, is that the book becomes a companion for whoever is reading it.
Source: Oprah.com: What Oprah Knows for Sure About Finding Daily InspirationView item: The Wisdom of SundaysOn record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 recommends it - BookRecommends$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
What I Know For Sure
Her own collection of the O column, first out in 2014 and later reissued with new material. The publisher groups the essays under headings including resilience, clarity, gratitude and awe, which is how the column itself ran: one question, put to herself every month for fourteen years.
Source: Apple Books: What I Know For Sure by Oprah WinfreyView item: What I Know For SureOn record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 recommends it
Gear
1 piece of gear in this stack
- GearDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Kettlebell
By her own account she avoided kettlebell swings for at least a year after watching other people do them well, and only got the hang of them with her trainer beside her correcting the movement.
Source: TODAY: Oprah Winfrey, 72, Finally Nailed This 1 Fitness Move After Setting a Goal to Master It 2 Years AgoView item: KettlebellOn record from 6 of 62 tracked people: 3 do it, 2 recommend it, 1 has discussed it
Protocols
6 entriesStructured routines and practices with a defined method.
Two summers and two new knees ago she added strength training, she wrote on Instagram, because muscle has to be held onto as you age. Flexibility and strength matter most for women and their bones, is the reasoning she gave. Deadlifts and weighted planks are in the sessions now.
Source: TODAY: Oprah Winfrey, 72, Finally Nailed This 1 Fitness Move After Setting a Goal to Master It 2 Years AgoShe practices yoga with the help of an app she named in her 2016 column, Yoga Studio by Gaiam, and counts it among the changes that shifted her health.
Source: Oprah.com: What Oprah Knows for Sure About Healthy LivingExercise these days is a question of agility and flexibility rather than output, she wrote in O, and a lot of resistance stretching is what that looks like in practice.
Source: Oprah.com: How Oprah Lives Healthier Than Ever BeforeExercising aerobically for at least an hour a day is one of the four things she listed in O in 2016 as having changed her health, alongside eating more mindfully, stretching and yoga.
Source: Oprah.com: What Oprah Knows for Sure About Healthy LivingRegular hikes have been part of her week since double knee surgery in 2021, and TODAY reports it is now her favorite form of exercise. Staring at a hill through a window while she could not walk is where the goal came from. What she describes is refusing to measure the climb ahead and turning around to see the ground already covered.
Source: TODAY: This Is Oprah Winfrey's Favorite Form of Exercise for 1 Powerful ReasonQuiet time at least once a day, twice when she is on point: 20 minutes in the morning and 20 in the evening, as she put it in O. TM teachers taught everyone at her company who wanted to learn, and she credits the results across the staff with better sleep, fewer migraines and more getting done.
Source: Oprah.com: What Oprah Knows for Sure About Finding the Fullest Expression of Yourself
Habits
9 entriesRecurring behaviors recorded in public statements.
The first thing she does after waking is read something inspiring, she wrote in O, with her favorite teachings kept within reach on the nightstand. Many of them come from people who had already sat down with her on Super Soul Sunday.
Source: Oprah.com: What Oprah Knows for Sure About Finding Daily InspirationWalking was the piece she repeated three times over when she summed up her exercise for O in 2017, sitting alongside stretching and yoga. Sky, trees and movement add up to happiness for her body, she wrote, and every day goes better with a hike in it.
Source: Oprah.com: How Oprah Lives Healthier Than Ever BeforeShe used to open the journal at night and write out the five things. It is electronic now, and she notes a grateful moment whenever one turns up instead of sitting down to a fixed page, which is how she says she got the habit back after years of letting it slide.
Source: Oprah.com: What Oprah Knows for Sure About GratitudeFive things a day, written down, for a full decade without missing one. The ritual slipped once her schedule filled up, she says, and rereading a 1996 entry showed her how little delight she was letting herself feel. Going through the day looking for something to be grateful for was the part that worked, in her telling.
Source: Oprah.com: What Oprah Knows for Sure About GratitudeOne summer she made a vow to log 10,000 steps a day and to get outdoors to do it, telling her own magazine she was ready for the open road and a new way of being in her body. TODAY covered the pledge in 2016.
Source: TODAY: Oprah Winfrey vows to walk 10,000 steps a dayPorch evenings with friends, shared meals, rolling in the grass with the dogs: her list of what happiness looks like is mostly other people. Service to others is what she calls her biggest reward.
Source: Oprah.com: What Oprah Knows for Sure About HappinessTrainer Peter, as she calls him, stands beside her on kettlebell swings to correct the movement and calls time on a plank she would rather keep holding. Whatever he throws her way is how she describes a session, from the ski machine to weights added mid-plank.
Source: TODAY: Oprah Winfrey, 72, Finally Nailed This 1 Fitness Move After Setting a Goal to Master It 2 Years AgoAfter 25 years of being driven to the studio in the dark and leaving after 8 p.m., she says she takes every chance now to get outdoors. Focusing on the stillness of a tree or the detail of a leaf is what centers her, and getting outside is what she credits with reviving her energy.
Source: Oprah.com: What Oprah Knows for Sure About Spending Time in NatureLunch on the day she wrote her happiness list was tomato soup made from tomatoes she had picked that morning. Food out of the garden is one of the specific things she names when the question is what happiness actually looks like.
Source: Oprah.com: What Oprah Knows for Sure About Happiness
In their own words
Checked word for word against the linked source
“So now I give myself a healthy dose of quiet time at least once (and when I'm on point, twice) a day. Twenty minutes in the morning, 20 in the evening. TM teachers have taught everyone in my company who wanted to learn how to meditate.”
Oprah.com: What Oprah Knows for Sure About Finding the Fullest Expression of Yourself (opens in a new tab) “For years I've been advocating the power and pleasure of being grateful. I kept a gratitude journal for a full decade without fail … I just made gratitude a daily priority. I went through the day looking for things to be grateful for, and something always showed up.”
Oprah.com: What Oprah Knows for Sure About Gratitude (opens in a new tab) “I love being surrounded by books. For me, they're like art, little pieces of sculpture placed all over the house, reminding me, always, of the power of the written word. Just looking at them brings me the purest kind of joy.”
Oprah.com: What Oprah Knows for Sure About the Joy of Reading (opens in a new tab) “The reason why I love hiking so much is because you’re looking at the top of the hill … Don’t look at how far you have to go … Every step you take, turn around and look at how far you’ve come.”
TODAY: This Is Oprah Winfrey's Favorite Form of Exercise for 1 Powerful Reason (opens in a new tab) · 13 Jan 2026 On Hiking
“As we age, and we want to age well, one of the things I’ve learned is that flexibility and strength is the most important, particularly for women and our bones. And so I’ve started strength training”
TODAY: Oprah Winfrey, 72, Finally Nailed This 1 Fitness Move After Setting a Goal to Master It 2 Years Ago (opens in a new tab) · 18 Feb 2026
Stack notes are paraphrased. Anything in quotation marks is a short excerpt copied from the transcript it links to. Not medical advice. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or reviewed by anyone listed. How this works.