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Sheryl Crow: Life After Breast Cancer, Motherhood, and All-Natural Anti-Aging

Sheryl Crow, the nine-time Grammy winner, breast cancer advocate, and down-to-earth Tennessee mom answers your questions.

Q: You seem to have such a happy disposition, what’s your morning routine like to get the day started in a positive direction?
—Heather Milam, Birmingham, Ala.

Sheryl: I meditate, so I try to get up before Wyatt gets up. If I don’t, then usually after breakfast and reading and activities with Wyatt, I’ll take him down to the barn, and I have a great farm manager who rides him around on the tractor or gets him busy feeding the chickens, and I’ll sneak off and meditate for 20 minutes. Then I usually work out around 10 or 11. My morning ritual is pretty much about Wyatt, because I work in the afternoon.

Q: What’s the biggest risk you’ve ever taken, and were you glad you did?
—Heather L. Holloway, New York, NY

Sheryl: Physically, jumping off a cliff that was about 60 feet into water.

It was in Hawaii, for the video to “Soak Up The Sun.” That was terrifying, but it’s funny, the year I turned 40, I learned how to surf, I got out my dirt bike and started doing motocross again, and jumped off a couple of cliffs. And it was all ridiculous, but it made me feel really alive and exhilarated.

Q: What do you do to live a greener life? If there’s one environmental action you could get others to take, what would it be?
—Alice Chan, Rockville, MD

Sheryl: My farm is solar, and it irks me that the government doesn’t make it easier financially for people to be solar or wind-power-driven. We’ve got to start hounding our government to make it more feasible financially for people to go green. I have hybrid cars. We don’t use the dryer full blast, we don’t run the dishwasher unless it’s totally full. I reuse my tin foil. I like to picture at the end of the day everything that I’m sending off to a landfill. If you do that, you might be much more conscious on a daily basis.

Q: What's your no-fail strategy for calming your son down if he's cranky? Do you sing him a favorite song?
—Sally Amick-Russo, Holmdel, New Jersey

Sheryl: When he was really little, I’d turn on “Shine Over Babylon,” which is on my last record, at a pretty good volume and he’d relax and go to sleep. As he’s gotten older, I tickle his face, around his ears, his head, his neck, down to his toes. That really calms him down and he loves it. And it’s funny because my housekeeper used to do it to me when I was little.

Q: You have a little guy–why don’t you ever look tired? I’m a mom of two, and I’d love to know your secret!
—Brooke Ruddy, Johnston, Iowa

Sheryl: Maybe you’ve only seen pictures where I have lots of makeup on! When I wake up in the morning and see myself, I see a tired person a lot of times! But I think exercise really helps resurrect a tired body. I think getting the blood going is paramount.

Q:Do you feel like you’ve fulfilled your dreams at this point in your life?
—Valerie Davis, Dubuque, Iowa

Sheryl: No. I think the thing that continues to make me pursue the perfect song is the belief in myself that the best stuff is yet to come. As you pass through the next portal, you get some kind of understanding that the next stuff that you write is going to be more free and more truthful.