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Kelly Ripa, 53, has a confession to make. The Daytime Emmy-winning morning talk show host admits that, “I, through the decades of hosting my morning show, really have discovered I’m not a

morning person.” However, she says her husband, Mark Consuelos, cohost of _Live With Kelly and Mark_, “is naturally the morningest person you’ve ever met.” Her strategy to cope? She never

sleeps in, even on breaks from filming the show. “I stay a morning person, because falling out of the routine — even on vacation — it’s too hard to get back into the routine. So I stay the

course. I still get up early.” Ripa shares with AARP her No. 1 beauty tip, how she’s dealing with her empty nest, and why she credits Celine Dion for her daughter’s passion for music. _This

interview has been edited for length and clarity._ YOU TALK TO PEOPLE FOR A LIVING. WERE YOU ALWAYS A GOOD CONVERSATIONALIST? ANY TIPS? Well, I have the worst social anxiety. I will do

anything to wiggle myself out of a party. I try to avoid it if I can, but if you are at a party — and you do have to go, and there’s no way out — always ask questions. Be curious about other

people. The key to a good conversation is to be an active listener — to listen and to pay attention and remember — because people are usually telling you something interesting. The key is

to listen and to take it in, and sometimes you’ll learn something fascinating. I learned that from my husband. He is somebody who will pay attention so intensely that he will recall a detail

that any other normal person, myself included, would have totally forgotten about. That’s the key to all of it. The new season of "Live With Kelly and Mark" begins Sept. 3 on ABC.

Lorenzo Bevilaqua/Getty Images ALL THREE OF YOUR KIDS [MICHAEL, 27; LOLA, 23; AND JOAQUIN, 21] ARE NOW OUT OF THE HOUSE. HOW WAS THAT TRANSITION? There is an adjustment period. I found that

when our youngest went away to college and the other two were already out of the house, I kept cooking like there were five of us. Mark reminded me it’s just the two of us now, and by the

way, we can eat dinner when we want. I was still on the family schedule. It takes you a month or two to sort of reframe your brain that you’re no longer on other people’s schedule. That’s

very liberating, and a lot of people will say, “Oh it’s terrible, it’s lonely.” It’s none of those things. HAVE YOU REDISCOVERED ANYTHING ABOUT YOURSELF AS AN EMPTY NESTER? What we’ve both

rediscovered is that we enjoy each other’s company. Mark and I. We actually, I’m not gonna lie, we were afraid. What happens if we despise each other? But we really like each other’s

company. We travel a lot more. Part of that is because our daughter moved to London, and so we travel a lot to see her. But we definitely will take long weekend trips and just go places

we’ve always wanted to go, because for so long our travels were dictated by the kids’ spring breaks and what they were studying in school. Schools would recommend: “Oh, take a trip to

Plymouth [Massachusetts] because we’re studying pilgrims.” Nothing against Plymouth — it’s beautiful and I was happy to do it — but now we tend to go to places where we always wanted to go.

And I’ve rediscovered how much I enjoy reading books, because for so many years, reading books was basically me reading whatever the schools’ summer reading assignments were just so I could

make sure my kids were reading the book. So now I’m reading for myself, which I really enjoy.