It may be easier to develop new habits if you take advantage of your current behavior. One of the best methods to create a new habit is by adding your new behavior onto an existing daily habit. This is called habit stacking.

How does habit stacking work?

The fact that you already have habits in your brain is a primary reason for stacking habits to work . Your routines and habits have been refined and perfected through the years.

By connecting your new behavior to an existing cycle in your brain, you can increase your chances of maintaining it. It will be easier to maintain your new behavior.

Once you understand this framework, you can start to build larger stacks of behaviors by combining smaller ones. You can then make the most out of the momentum created by one action leading to the next.

Habit Stacking Examples

Consider your habits. Choose simple habits. You probably brush your teeth when you wake up in the early morning. Take five minutes after you’ve finished to center yourself and focus on your breathing. Just add a little meditation to a habit that you already have. Continue to do this and it will become second nature for you to meditate every time you brush your teeth.

After you have mastered a habit, add another one to your stack. Look at your entire list of habits to see what you could stack. It’s much easier than you think!

The First Step in Stacking

The most important thing to do is to choose the right “trigger” that will get the ball rolling. It is important to consider the time and place of day that you introduce a habit.

You might be trying meditation at the wrong place or time if you’re usually busy in the mornings and your kids are always racing into the room. Consider the times that you will have the most success. You cannot expect yourself to follow a schedule if you’re preoccupied by anything else.

The cue you use should also occur at regular intervals, just like the habit that you are trying to create. It is not a good idea to combine two habits. For example, if you want to perform a certain task every day and another that you only want to perform on Mondays.

Summary

healthline.com states that a person’s new habit can be formed in 18-254 days. It takes on average 66 days to make a behavior automatic. You can create new habits faster by using habit stacking.