Habit stacking: What is it and can it help me stick to new habits?

What is habit stacking and how do you do it?

It is believed that it can take anywhere from 18 to 245 days to form a new habit

With great intentions, last year I began practising 20 minutes of yoga every morning. I lasted two months, until life took over and filled that time with other, supposedly more important activities. I missed the increased heartbeat and loose limbs those 20 minutes gave me and decided to change my habits, and create a new routine to incorporate mindfulness.

My timetable does not give me the leeway to attend a class, so I was looking at throwing my yoga mat down again. This time, my
intentions were more determined, but I also had a plan to “habit stack”. To create a consistent habit, I would attach my new ritual to other, already established habits to create and reinforce a new routine. So far, five months down the line, stacking habit on top of habit has worked.

“Habit stacking is the idea that you introduce new habits around established habits, and by bonding them together, you stand a better chance at maintaining the ‘new’ habits,” says Dr Damien Lowry, Senior Counselling Psychologist and Chartered Member of the Psychological Society of Ireland.

 “Habits are the rituals we don’t have to think about, and the behaviours we naturally do. Getting dressed and brushing our teeth are actions that are simply “done”.

After the school drop-off, I ordinarily would come home, pop the kettle on and open the laptop. I’d check my emails while the kettle boiled, jot down a to-do list while my coffee cooled and search for that first sentence as the cursor blinked.

It is believed that it can take anywhere from 18 to 245 days to form a new habit depending on our personalities, behaviours, and circumstances. Left on its own, creating a new habit is likely to run into problems if our expectations are too high, our environment is lacking, or we self-sabotage our efforts. When we stack or attach a new habit onto an established habit or routine, we are more likely to succeed.

“Maintaining behavioural change is the real challenge, and it’s one of the main factors in why most diets fail and why many gyms are relatively empty by March after the New Year’s Resolutions Brigade tapers off,” says Dr Lowry.

Our current behaviours are so ingrained into our routines that we barely think about the thousands of habits we already have.

“Habit stacking is sometimes referred to as a specific form of an ‘implementation intention’, which seeks to modify behaviour by establishing certain goal intentions”, says Dr Lowry.

“However, it’s different because instead of pairing a ‘new’ habit with a particular time and location, you pair it with a current habit. By doing so, it’s
argued that the new behaviour is more likely to ‘stick’ and be maintained over time. It can start to form a chain of new habits that are advantageous to the individual, provided they are realistic and achievable.”

Incorporating habit stacking takes time, patience, and determination. We need to know what we want to achieve, when, and what routine is likely to work in our favour. Choose a time of day that works with your daily routine and know the importance and relevance of this new habit so that you can align it with a trigger or cue that will encourage the habit to stick.

“Habit stacking is a relatively simple method one might consider using to start adding in habits that can be bedded down over time,” says Dr Lowry.

“In my view, it’s likely to be more successful as a method if the following conditions are met: you are a bit of a creature of habit already; your chosen new habit is meaningful to you and something you want to do more of; you are motivated to modify your behaviour; and you start small and grow slowly. It’s useful to think of habits as needing months of reinforcement before they get ‘baked in’ to our routines.”