Want to adopt a healthy new habit? 'Stack' it

One recent morning, in the interest of science, I jumped up from my morning cup of coffee to take an allergy pill, eat an apple, check my blood pressure, do five push-ups, climb three flights of stairs, declutter a pile of papers and a make a to-do list for the day.

Total elapsed time for my mini-marathon of virtue: 9 minutes.

My slightly sweaty scramble was an extreme version of something variously called habit stacking, chaining, anchoring or piggybacking.

The idea: If I jumped up and did those things every morning after my coffee, they'd soon become as automatic as my caffeine habit. I'd never forget my allergy pill or blood pressure check and I'd start every day with an uncluttered desk and mind.

The power of linking new habits to established routines is well-known by psychologists, marketers and other students of human behavior.

"No behavior happens without a trigger," whether that's a memory, a Post-it note, a time of day or another behavior, says BJ Fogg, a behavior scientist who runs a lab at Stanford University. When you intentionally anchor a new behavior to an old one, he says, you choose the trigger.

Fogg and other habit experts practice what they preach:

• Fogg does push-ups after he pees (at least when he's at home). "This morning, I did a set of 10 and a set of 20," he says. On a typical day, he totals 30 to 50. But a key part of his method, which he markets as Tiny Habits, is starting new habits small. So he started, years ago, with just one push-up after every bathroom break. He suggests people who want to start a flossing habit start with one tooth.

• Wendy Wood, a professor of psychology and business at the University of Southern California, starts her "boring and tedious" physical therapy exercises each evening when she sits down to watch TV. Research shows that "people who are successful at adopting new behaviors are those who piggyback, who tie it to something they are already doing," she says.

•James Clear, a writer and speaker on habit formation, meditates for 60 seconds each morning after brewing his coffee. He also expresses gratitude for one thing each evening when he sits down to dinner at his home in Durham, N.C. While such small doses of mental maintenance may have little immediate effect, he says, "the cumulative effect can be very big."

None of those people advocates stacking multiple new habits on top of old ones. They say it is best to keep things simple and to find individual triggers for each new habit you want to adopt. That minimizes the need for willpower and keeps the mental link between the old and new habits as strong as possible, Wood says.

But S.J. (Steve) Scott, an internet entrepreneur who churns out e-books on productivity, organization and habits, is in the more-is-better camp. In his e-book Habit Stacking: 97 Small Life Changes that Take Five Minutes or Less, he suggests stacking up to seven quick habits at a time for maximum effect. That's what I tried. (My verdict: It worked … for one day.)

Though my efforts to speak with Scott were unsuccessful (perhaps because he was busy with 97 other things), I did find one person who stacks multiple habits and makes it work day after day, year after year.

Courtney Carver, a Salt Lake City blogger and speaker who coaches people on simplifying their lives, says she was never able to find the time to write, meditate, read and walk each day until she bundled those habits into a morning routine triggered by her alarm clock at 5:30 a.m. She says she started with five minutes each of two activities and now devotes 15 to 20 minutes each to writing, meditation and reading. Then she takes a 5-mile walk.

That routine has made a "100% difference" in her life and health, says Carver, who has multiple sclerosis.

One hazard of tying new habits to routines is that routines sometimes fall apart — vacations and illnesses happen, work or school schedules change. When that happens, Carver says, she just starts over with two five-minute habits and rebuilds from there.

That ability to reboot is important, others agree. Some additional tips for making habit-stacking work:

• Start by looking at your existing routine, finding the things you do every day — such as brushing your teeth, taking a shower, doing the dinner dishes or closing your laptop at the end of a workday. Those are your potential anchors or triggers.

• Be specific. Plans to "drink more water" and "eat an apple a day" probably won't work. Plans to take a sip of water every time you hang up the phone and eat an apple after doing the dishes are better (just make sure you have a bottle of water at your desk and a bowl of apples in your kitchen).

• Start small. While some experts take this to extremes (flossing one tooth), others suggest limiting new habits to five minutes or less.

• Pick new habits you really want to adopt. Even a strong trigger won't work if you really don't want to do those push-ups.