Create new lasting habits, like doing the rehab exercises recommended by your chiropractor or osteopath, using habit stacking.
We give our patients at home exercises as part of our treatment sessions. They are essential for aiding recovery or preventing a problem from reoccurring, but patients often find it hard to fit them in to their daily routine. If that sounds familiar, why not try habit stacking?
What is habit stacking?
Habit stacking is a great strategy to use if you want to build long lasting habits into your life. Essentially, the idea is that you add new habits on to existing habits.
How do I do it?
To stack habits, you need to pick a regular habit and add a new one before or after it. For example, to ensure you do your exercises daily, pick a habit that you already do every day, like eating a meal or going to bed, and commit to stacking your exercises on to it e.g. Before I eat my lunch I will do my exercises.
How to create lasting habits
If you want habit stacking to work, it’s important to follow these top tips:
1. Identify existing habits carefully – if you are not consistent with your old habit, your new habit will not become consistent either.
2. Make it short – make your new habit as small as possible, ideally something you can do in 2 minutes or less. And make sure you realistically have time to stack it on to the existing habit, otherwise you’re setting yourself up to fail.
3. Track your habit – to really make your habit stick, track it, as it will give you more motivation to keep going.
The possibilities of habit stacking are endless and it can use it in any area of your life, be it your health, relationships, finances or fitness, so why not give it a go?