Healthy Aging • Sponsored Content
The One Thing the Okinawan Women in My Family Take Every Morning. My Obaa Is 94 and Still in Her Garden by 6:30.
Updated: October 2026 · 9 min read
My grandmother is 94. Everyone calls her Obaa. She lives alone in the same wooden house in the north of Okinawa where she raised five kids, and every morning at six she kneels at a low table for breakfast: rice, miso soup, a piece of fish and a cup of jasmine tea.
Next to the tea there's a little saucer with two dark-red softgels on it.
My mother is 71 and keeps the same saucer next to her teapot in Naha. I'm 48 and I live in Columbus, Ohio, and for the last two years there's been one next to my coffee maker too.
People always ask me what Okinawan grandmothers do differently. I can only tell you what the women in my family do every morning.
Each of us has her own reason for the saucer. And when I had to buy the softgels myself in America, Mom gave me three rules.
Obaa, 94: She Has Worked Outdoors Since She Was 9. Ask Her About the Softgels and She Taps Her Cheek.
She started helping in the sugarcane fields at nine. Eighty-five years later she still keeps a vegetable garden, and she's out in it by half past six under a straw hat the size of a bicycle wheel.
When I finally asked her about the softgels, she tapped her cheek and said, "For my skin. Slowly, every day."
Eighty-five years outdoors in Okinawa means a lot of sun, and sun is one of the everyday things that create free radicals in the body, along with stress, screens, short nights and plain old age. Over the years that oxidative stress wears on your cells.
The red in those softgels is astaxanthin. It comes from a microalgae called Haematococcus pluvialis, and it's the same pigment that turns shrimp pink. It's also an unusual antioxidant. It works on both the watery and the fatty parts of a cell, so it can sit right across the cell membrane, inside and out.
For skin, that means antioxidant support from the inside and a healthy, radiant look over time.
She still wears the hat and long sleeves outside, every single day. The softgels are part of breakfast.
Mom, 71: She Leads the 6:30am Exercises in Her Park and Is Usually the Last One to Go Home
A lot of older people in Japan start the day with radio exercises, about ten minutes of stretches set to a program on the radio. My mother has led the group in her neighborhood park since she retired. She brings the radio.
She started the softgels at 64, the year after she stopped working. Her mornings felt heavy and her afternoon nap kept getting longer. Obaa pushed the saucer across the table at her and said, "You first, then the tea."
Mom takes it for energy and heart health. Astaxanthin helps your mitochondria do their job, and those are the little power plants inside every cell. It also supports healthy circulation and cardiovascular wellness.
"I can do the whole morning," she told me. The whole morning means the exercises, the market, then an hour on the bench catching up on everybody's news, which is the part she would never skip.
She showed the label to her doctor before she started, and I'd tell anyone on regular medication to do the same.
Me, 48: I Held Out the Longest, Until Mom Saw My Face on a Video Call at 10pm
Mom saw it before I did, on a video call.
It was 10pm in Ohio and 11am the next day in Naha. I was still at my desk with two screens on and a cold coffee. She squinted at her phone and told me my face looked gray.
I laughed. Then I went and looked in the bathroom mirror, and she had a point.
That summer I flew home, and Obaa sent me back to Ohio with a box of her softgels in my suitcase. Nobody in my family asks whether you want something.
My week is the modern version of her sun: screens from 8am, a long commute, deadlines, short nights and too much takeout. Every one of those adds to the same oxidative stress.
The first two weeks felt like nothing, and I nearly gave up. Around week four I noticed I wasn't reaching for a second coffee at 3pm, and my skin looked less flat in the mirror.
I've taken it every morning and every evening since. When Obaa's box ran out two months later, I had to find my own, and Mom had opinions.
Mom's First Rule: 12mg a Day, From Algae, Printed on the Label. Half the Bottles in My Pharmacy Failed It.
I stood in the vitamin aisle of my local pharmacy for twenty minutes, texting Mom photos of labels. She made me check three things before I bought anything, and the first was the label itself.
Start with the amount. 12mg a day is the dose used in a lot of the clinical research. A lot of the bottles I picked up gave 4mg or 6mg a day at the full serving, a third or half of that.
Then where it comes from. The natural astaxanthin Mom wanted comes from Haematococcus pluvialis microalgae. There are also synthetic versions made in a lab, and Mom is blunt about those: if the label doesn't name the algae, put it back on the shelf.
So Mom's first rule is 12mg a day from Haematococcus pluvialis, with both printed on the label.
That ruled out about half the shelf. Two of the bottles left after that were capsules full of dry powder.
Mom's Other Two Rules: Two Bottles That Passed Were Dry Powder, and Obaa's Breakfast Fish Is Why I Put Them Back
Astaxanthin dissolves in fat. Your body may take in more of it when there's some fat in the meal, which is why Obaa takes hers with breakfast. Her fish counts. So does my fried egg.
It's also why the format matters. Research on astaxanthin shows oil-based softgels support absorption compared with dry powder capsules, so Mom's second rule is a softgel with the oil already inside it.
Her third rule is about testing. She wants to know who checked it. The one I buy is made in a GMP-certified, FDA-registered facility, and an outside lab tests every batch for purity and heavy metals.
You also split the dose: two softgels in the morning and two in the evening, each with a meal. Your body can only absorb so much of a fat-soluble antioxidant at once.
Obaa has taken hers that way for years, two with breakfast and two with supper. Supper is at five in that house, so evening is a loose word.
* Good food and moving every day still do most of the work. If you want one daily supplement on top of them, this is the one I take.
The Pouch Next to My Coffee Maker, and What's Inside It
Rovina Astaxanthin is the one I buy now, and it passes all three of Mom's rules: 12mg of natural astaxanthin a day from Haematococcus pluvialis microalgae, in an organic coconut oil softgel, with every batch lab tested.
How I take it:
Two softgels with breakfast and two with dinner, each time with a meal that has some healthy fat in it.
❌ No dry powder capsules.
❌ No synthetic astaxanthin.
❌ No 4mg daily serving.
❌ No artificial colors, flavors or preservatives.
❌ No fillers.
What's inside:
Astaxanthin, 12mg, from Haematococcus pluvialis microalgae, per serving of four softgels.
Organic coconut oil, so the astaxanthin has fat to travel with.
The softgel shell, made of gelatin, glycerin and purified water.
✔ 12mg a day from natural microalgae.
✔ Every batch tested by an outside lab for purity and heavy metals.
✔ Made in a GMP-certified, FDA-registered facility.
✔ Non-GMO, gluten-free and soy-free.
✔ 90-day money-back guarantee.
One Rovina review is from Lynette, who calls herself a young 73. She wrote that she could see a difference in her skin and her energy.
If you aren't happy with it within 90 days, send it back for a full refund.
Give it a fair run, though. Obaa's advice is "slowly, every day."
Weeks 1 and 2 usually feel like nothing much. Your body is getting used to a daily antioxidant.
By weeks 3 and 4, most people notice something.
Through weeks 5 to 8, it keeps building, often in places you weren't paying attention to.
After week 8, it's just part of breakfast and dinner.
Right now Rovina is running Buy 1, Get 1 Free. They only sell it on their own website, so order it from the official Rovina shop below.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
Individual results may vary. Testimonials reflect individual experiences.
Rovina is for adults 18 and over. If you are pregnant, nursing, or take prescription medication, including blood thinners or immunosuppressants, talk to your doctor before you start.