Taking a journey to personal development usually involves changing and making new habits. It can be challenging to incorporate a new habit into your existing daily routine, but it can be done. Habit stacking is a great way to integrate new habits as it uses the strength of existing actions to combine new behaviours with existing ones. This is a strategy that utilises the power of preexisting behaviours to enhance personal development and growth. In this guide, we will look deeper at habit stacking and how it can help your fitness.
What is Habit Stacking?
Have you ever tried to start a new habit and found you don’t stick to it for very long? This is where habit stacking comes in to try and make it that little bit easier. Habit stacking is a trick used to make new habits effortlessly merge into your existing routine. You simply match a new habit with a preexisting one to establish a natural flow between the two. This technique takes advantage of existing routines to build in new habits, therefore, bringing in a new behaviour related to the preexisting one won’t need as much effort due to its smooth integration.
This is a method that can be used for many different aspects of life, from your everyday routine to your fitness routine. It can also provide positive mental stimulation through celebrating the small wins from effectively implementing new habits into your routine, resulting in positive reinforcement. This can increase motivation to continually add new habits, fostering personal growth. Habit stacking allows you to focus on bigger and more complex tasks. With habit stacking, habits become an automatic action, therefore, your mind can remain focused on the larger tasks. Implementing this technique will improve your productivity, as you can combine tasks to become more efficient, allowing you to achieve more throughout the day.
How Can Habit Stacking Help Your Fitness?
Begin to sprinkle some fitness into your daily routine with habit stacking. It’s a simple but effective way to keep fit and active throughout the day. By simply adding quick and easy exercises to things you already do throughout the day, you’ll be more productive and boost your mood. You could go for a short walk after work, do some squats whilst waiting for your dinner to cook or the kettle to boil, or even pair your TV-watching time with some stretching.
By adding small exercise habits into your daily routine, you are fostering a consistent fitness routine that you can gradually begin to build upon. This will make it easier to adhere to fitness workouts and goals in the long run. Habit stacking is also beneficial for helping you still carry out exercise on a busy schedule. It allows you to incorporate exercise into the tasks you are already doing, making it a lot more time-efficient.
Ensure to seek advice from a medical or fitness professional before adding a habit to your routine that you are unsure of. Make sure you are physically safe to carry out exercises and tasks. Also ensure that you’re not introducing too many new habits to make sure your body can handle these changes.
How to Habit Stack at Village Gym
Start to habit stack at Village Gym by gradually introducing fitness habits into your normal sessions. We have a range of state-of-the-art equipment from weights to cardio machines that will allow you to add a range of new habits to your routine. Whether that’s adding some flexibility movements during rest intervals or adding dynamic movements to your warm-ups. You could also make use of our wellness facilities and add a session in the sauna or steam room after doing some lengths in the swimming pool.
Take a look at our range of memberships to find which one is right for you. We have gyms all across the nation to help you work out wherever you are. Sign up today and start making those habits stick!
FAQs about Habit Stacking
How many new habits should you add at one time?
It’s advised to start by adding a small number of new habits to your routine, as having too many new habits at once can be difficult to sustain. By adding a couple of new habits and allowing yourself to adjust then you can begin to build more habits into your routine.
How long does it take for a new habit to stick?
There isn’t a specific time frame as some people can take to new habits quicker than others. Implementing a new habit that flows in with an existing element of your routine will help you adapt quicker.
Why is habit stacking used?
It’s a simple yet effective method of implementing new habits into your daily routine by stacking the new habit onto an existing one, with the aim that you'll find it easier to remember to perform the new habit with less effort.
