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Feel like your efforts to start a healthy lifestyle are caught in a loop? Here's a simple hack that can help us all commit to our good intentions
Summary
1What is habit stacking?
In its simplest terms, habit stacking involves ‘stacking’ a new behaviour we want to adopt onto a behaviour we already do like clockwork...
2Does habit stacking work?
Its many devotees would say yes. Research by leading social scientist James Clear has found that habit stacking is particularly effective because...
3How does habit stacking work?
Habit stacking is a case of layering a new habit on top of an existing one. For example, when you perform a well-practised behaviour, such as...
Whether it’s sticking to a regular workout routine or eating a larger variety of gut-friendly foods, it can be notoriously difficult to make positive changes that stick around for the long haul. Until now, that is.
A growing area of behavioural science is offering hope for those of us that struggle to maintain momentum with our diet and fitness goals. Known as habit stacking, it’s a simple, science-backed strategy that promises to sidestep the cycle of forgetting your goals or losing momentum.
Keen to know how to do it? Then look no further…
What is habit stacking?
In its simplest terms, habit stacking involves ‘stacking’ a new behaviour we want to adopt onto a behaviour we already do like clockwork. This helps us remember to do it with much less mental effort.
Getting a bit more scientific, it’s a ‘neuro-hacking’ tool (ie: something that can have a positive impact on the way you think) that suggests we can embrace difficult, new behaviours by attaching them to old, familiar ones.
Does habit stacking work?
Its many devotees would say yes. Research by leading social scientist James Clear1 has found that habit stacking is particularly effective because it takes advantage of the deep neural pathways that we’ve already built in the past. This means we don’t need to create entirely new pathways – or synaptic connections – for a new habit to take hold.
“Adding an extra action to your existing routine can quickly become intuitive”
If you wake up, take a shower, use shampoo, then conditioner, dry off and get dressed, you're already a stacker. You’re naturally joining actions together and can probably identify little pockets of habit stacks throughout your day. Adding an extra action to this feels simple and can quickly become intuitive.
Illustrating the power of this approach, a study from 20132 examined dental flossing habits. It revealed that people who flossed immediately after brushing – rather than before – tended to develop stronger flossing habits overall. That’s probably because, for many of us, toothbrushing has been part of our night-time routine for as long as we can remember, so we can connect the new follow-up action – flossing – to it with ease. And the habit stuck. At an eight-month follow-up, participants who flossed after brushing consistently flossed more frequently than those who didn't adopt this habit-stacking approach.
How does habit stacking work?
Habit stacking is a case of layering a new habit on top of an existing one.
For example, when you perform a well-practised behaviour, such as opening the curtains in the morning, specific neural pathways in your brain fire up and become activated.
Like learning a new language or practicing the piano, these neuroplastic connections become strengthened with each single repetition, eventually causing the behaviour to become automatic over time. And if you don’t do it, you really notice the change in your routine.
When you make a concerted effort to habit stack, you're essentially cheating the system – that’s why it gets called a ‘hack’. As Jennifer Mann, co-author of The Secret Language of the Body,3 says: “piggybacking a fresh, hard-to-set habit onto a well-established pathway that’s already second nature.”
“If you team taking your supplements with quenching your thirst in the morning, you won’t forget to do either!”
So if you want to remember to take your supplements, team it with a relatively easy habit like quenching your thirst in the morning. You won’t forget to reach for your glass of water, so you won’t forget to take that supplement either. But it doesn’t stop there…
Attaching habit stacking to tough habits
According to Dr. Mike Rucker, behavioural scientist and author of The Fun Habit,4 the potent power of habit stacking can really come into its own when we combine a task we don’t particularly enjoy with one that we’re really looking forward to. This is what’s known as ‘temptation bundling’.
On top of that, habit stacking tends to break big goals into smaller, more manageable tasks, making the whole process less intimidating. For instance, rather than committing to an hour of meditation daily, habit stacking suggests starting with simple actions, like doing a quick mindfulness exercise while waiting for the kettle to boil. Over time, we can then incrementally build up these micro-tasks into bigger habits, as our brains adjust to our new routines.
The final say
So now you know the theory of habit stacking, are you ready to put it into practice? Checkout these habit-stacking ideas from three experts across fitness, wellness and nutrition.
- Clear J. Habit Stacking: How to Build New Habits by Taking Advantage of Old Ones [Internet]. James Clear. 2018. Available from: https://jamesclear.com/habit-stacking
- Judah G, Gardner B, Aunger R. Forming a flossing habit: An exploratory study of the psychological determinants of habit formation. British Journal of Health Psychology [Internet]. 2012 Sep 18;18(2):338–53. Available from: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.2044-8287.2012.02086.x
- The Secret Language of the Body: Regulate your nervous system, heal your body, free your mind [Internet]. HarperCollins Publishers UK. [cited 2024 Jun 25]. Available from: https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/the-secret-language-of-the-body-regulate-your-nervous-system-heal-your-body-free-your-mind-jennifer-mannkarden-rabin?variant=40609781186638
- The Fun Habit [Internet]. Mike Rucker, Ph.D. [cited 2024 Jun 25]. Available from: https://michaelrucker.com/fun-habit/
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