It’s common for me in my sessions with my clients to recommend habit stacking, especially if they’re struggling with adopting a healthy habit or behaviour. Because I’ve seen how effective it can be in my clients, and myself, I thought I’d share this concept with you, my readers. I hope you find it useful in improving your quality of life.
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Habit Stacking: Good Habits
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It’s really easy to establish a bad habit, as we don’t even need to try. Bad habits often come with instant rewards, and our brain loves being rewarded, so that reinforces the bad habit. Whereas with good habits, the habits we want to create may never come with a reward, or if it does, it’s way down the road (Rutledge, 2021).
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This is how substance dependency can develop because it taps directly into our reward system. But it can also be how we develop poor coping mechanisms. Any behaviour we engage in regularly will result in stronger connections being formed in the brain with said behaviour, but if we disengage from that behaviour, then our brain will start pruning those connections (Clear, 2020). Unfortunately, when it comes to substance dependency, you have withdrawals and cravings that can stop the disengagement from the negative behaviour.
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A study by Lally, Van Jaarsveld, Potts, and Wardle (2010) found that it took 18 to 254 days, with 66 days being the average for a habit to form. They got to this figure by performing a study with 96 volunteers who chose an eating, drinking, or activity behaviour that they were to carry out daily. That also means that if you’re trying to create a habit that you’ll engage in less frequently, then it may take longer to establish.
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So What Is Habit Stacking?
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Habit stacking, also known as piggybacking, is a behavioural strategy that pairs a new habit with an existing habit or behaviour (Victorson, 2024). Simply put, you’re taking advantage of the existing habit or behaviour and turning it into a cue for your new habit (Liesl, 2019). A bit like a self-nudge.
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We all have existing habits, behaviours, and connections that we rely on, but aren’t aware that we do. Our brains like shortcuts, so things we do regularly, we start doing automatically without thinking a lot of the time (Clear, 2020). Habit stacking is about taking advantage of that for our own benefit.
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For example, I have a hard time remembering to take my metformin medication that I’m meant to take in the evening with my dinner. But I have no issue whatsoever with taking my other medications in the morning. The latter I was able to habit stack with my existing morning routine with minimal effort.
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To get the most from habit stacking, try to find habits and goals that complement each other when you can (Barlow, 2024). For example, pairing your morning coffee with meditation, as they can both help you start your day well.
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I don’t drink coffee or tea, but to tap into habit stacking, I’ve added fitness behaviours with more mundane tasks, like waiting for the kettle to boil or the microwave to ping. While I’m waiting, I’ll do some micro exercises. Generally, that’s shoulder exercises to help with my posture and upper back, which is fucked.
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Thus, if you’re looking for a quick way to adopt a new healthy habit, habit stacking might be the tool for you (Van Amburg, 2024), because healthy habits can be the hardest to adopt. So do what I did, find a behaviour that can work as a trigger for your new habit, and pair them together. Then it’s all down to repetition.
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I often give my client advice on stacking the new behaviours and healthy habits with existing behaviours, such as adding journaling to their sleep routine or creating/updating to-do lists with their end-of-work routine. If they don’t have either routine, then we discuss the benefits of having one and helping them develop one first.
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To help speed up the adoption of the new habit that you are habit stacking, consider creating a rewards plan so you can tap into your rewards system (Liesl, 2019). If you can, try to make those rewards healthy where you can.
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Summary
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Establishing a new behaviour or habit can be really difficult at the best of times. Luckily, there is a life hack that can help with that, and that’s habit stacking. If you want to adopt a new habit or behaviour, then consider pairing it with an existing habit, behaviour, or routine, and this will aid you in establishing this change.
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As always, leave your feedback in the comments section below. Also, please share your experiences with habit stacking in the comments section below. Don’t forget, if you want to stay up-to-date with my blog, you can sign up for my newsletter below. Alternatively, click the red bell icon in the bottom right corner to get push notifications for new articles.
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References
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Barlow, C. (2024, February). What is habit stacking and can it improve your well-being?. David Lloyd Clubs. Retrieved from https://blog.davidlloyd.co.uk/wellness/habit-stacking.
Clear, J. (2020). How to build new habits by taking advantage of old ones. James Clear. Retrieved from https://yourknow.com/uploads/books/Habit_Stacking__How_to_Build_New_Habits_by_Taking_Advantage_of_Old_Ones.pdf and https://jamesclear.com/habit-stacking.
Lally, P., Van Jaarsveld, C. H., Potts, H. W., & Wardle, J. (2010). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 998-1009. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ejsp.674 and https://repositorio.ispa.pt/bitstream/10400.12/3364/1/IJSP_998-1009.pdf.
Liesl, M. (2019, March). The power of classroom habits. Liesl McConchie. Retrieved from https://lieslmcconchie.com/the-power-of-classroom-habits.
Rutledge, T. (2021, August). Understanding one principle about habit formation can make all the difference. Psychology Today. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/the-healthy-journey/202108/why-bad-habits-are-easy-and-good-habits-are-hard.
Van Amburg, J. (2024, March). The 9 Best Habit-Stacking Combos for Forming New Wellness Routines. Peloton. Retrieved from https://www.onepeloton.com/en-GB/blog/habit-stacking.
Victorson, D. (2024). Cultivating Reciprocity Between People and Planet: Habit-Stacking Planetary Health Prescriptions Into Existing Nature RX Encounters During Integrative Health Visits. Global Advances in Integrative Medicine and Health, 13, 27536130241245429. Retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/27536130241245429 and https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/27536130241245429.
Great post! I love how you always include your sources and research. I recently started hearing the phrase “habit stacking” over the past year, and it makes a lot of sense, especially as a method of providing our brains with shortcuts, as you mentioned. I need to come up with some ideas for myself. Thanks for sharing!
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I hope you find habit stacking useful. Thanks for commenting
Habit stacking sounds like a good way to practice good habits. I need to habit stacking. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks for commenting
I do this all the time but never knew there was a name for it! Thanks for the summary and especially for all the links. I’m going to dig into this and see about establishing more habit stacking.
I hope it helps you establish more healthy habits. Thanks for commenting
Habit stacking is not something I considered. I’m so used to hearing that we have to focus on one at a time because it guarantees success. I loved reading and learning about this
There’s certainly a time and a place for focusing solely on one thing at a time, but when a habit is established it can become an ideal way to stack new habits on top so they’re easier to establish as well. Thanks for commenting