How to Make Positive Habits Unstoppable with Habit Stacking

Habits are the building blocks of our lives, but forming positive habits can

be a challenge. Fortunately, there is a way to make positive habits unstoppable - habit stacking. By combining small, achievable tasks into larger goals and breaking them down into manageable chunks, you can create an effective system for forming and maintaining good habits. They can help you stay organized, focused, and productive throughout the day. By creating a stack of habits that you practice regularly, you can ensure that your day is filled with activities that will lead to long-term success. From morning routines to bedtime routines and exercise routines, stacking habits is a great way to form a habit-driven lifestyle. With the right stack of habits in place, you can make sure that your daily routine is effective and efficient as well.

With habit stacking, you can build the life you want by creating a series of achievable goals and making them part of your daily routine. Learn how to make positive habits unstoppable with habit stacking today!

Habits are the building blocks of success.

The 3 Step Process of Implementing Habit Stacking

Habit stacking consists of three steps:

1. Identify the habits you want to stack,

2. Break them down into manageable chunks,

3. Find ways to link them together to form a chain of habits that will help you reach your goals.

The only rule you will have to follow is simple enough: Don't let yourself take 2 days off in a row for any of your habits. Research shows that taking two days off makes you lose the momentum and it is so much easier to skip more days to the point that you lose track completely.

Habits like “read more”, “exercise more, or “eat better” are worthy causes but are far too vague. These goals do not provide instruction on how and when to act. Be specific and clear: After I brush my teeth. Before I drink my coffee/tea. After I sit down at the table. The specificity is important. The more tightly bound your new habit is to a specific cue, the better the odds are that you will notice when the time comes to act. By following these steps, you can easily create a habit stack that will help you become more productive and successful in life.

5 Examples of Habits You Can Stack Right Now

1. Drink at least 12 ounces of mineralized water before breakfast or before your coffee. I add a dash of himalayan sea salt or Celtic sea salt to mineralize my filtered water. Preparing my mineralized water is part of my nightly routine (habit stacking) and leaving it by the tea pot. The tea pot is where I head to first thing in the morning!

2. After you sit down for a meal, say one affirmation. Download our affirmation sheet for ideas! In the morning I like to start with affirmations on how I want my day to go. For example: Today is going to be a good day, Challenges are Opportunities, I deserve to enjoy this day, etc. At the end of the day I turn my affirmations to gratitude based, I am so lucky I get to live out my passion, I am so fortunate to have a loving family, I so appreciate all my clients. Etc.

3. Before getting dressed in the morning, move your body. Stretching, yoga, tai chi, vibration plate, rebounding, lunges. Start with just 5 minutes. Your body deserves at least 5 minutes! When was the last time you skipped? Try skipping up and down your hallway. Whenever I start to feel overwhelmed and/or anxious I start skipping! I skip to my office, I skip outside, I skip out to my car! My grown kiddos laughed and joked at first, and then skipping became a contest. Did they remember how to skip? Do you only use one leg or both? Who could go the farthest, the fastest. Not only did I move my body, we laughed at the beginning, and now I have joyful memories when I skip. I also activate my parasympathetic nervous system.

4. Habit Stack your financial responsibilities. While drinking your morning coffee or tea, review your account + credit card balances and budget at the same time. This stacks a pleasant task with a task you probably dread doing. Routinely checking may help keep you on budget.

5. Add a new habit while at Balanced Healing Salt + Sauna. When you already love your Salt + Sauna time, this is a good place to start your habit stacking. For example, studies have shown that saunas help increase flexibility, so it is the perfect place to pair stretching or yoga. “While I am in the sauna, I will stretch for 15 minutes”. “While I am in the salt room, I will journal/meditate for the first 15 minutes” or “While I am at Balanced Healing I will read for the first 15 minutes”.

When the Sunlighten Facebook Community was asked to share their successes and favorite habit stacks and they provided so many great ideas. Here are some of the most popular things our sauna community is doing:

1. Fascia Work – Myofascial tissue is connective tissue that helps your body move and is associated with pain and cellulite. Fascia work is a type of massage that loosens fascia and helps the body in many ways and our customers say they love using a FasciaBlaster during or after. Fascia work is better when the body is warmed up, so using a sauna and doing deep work in the fascia layer goes so perfectly together. Sauna users say they’ve seen improvements in cellulite and dimpling.

2. Meditate – Ongoing research continues to support meditation for health. Some of the favorite meditation apps used by the Sunlighten community include Headspace because it’s so easy to follow and has a fun, cheerful aesthetic; Balance because it creates personalized experiences; Insight Timer because it’s comprehensive and flexible; Neurocycle is a new app by our partner Dr. Caroline Leaf that teaches you how to detox your brain by managing your thoughts in 5 steps. Balanced Healing has access to guided mediation through Spotify as well.

3. Dry Brush – Dry brushing unclogs pores by exfoliating and helps detoxify your skin by increasing blood circulation and promoting lymph drainage. Members said with routine use they notice smoother skin texture without dryness, making them feel that the detoxification was working.

4. Exercising – Yoga, crunches, planks, and stretching can all be added during or after a sauna session to stack the benefits of sweating and heat.

What are you going to Habit Stack? Need a place to start, or further support/direction, reach out to us! We love to share our knowledge and we love to support you in your wellness journey!

Happy Habit Stacking! xoxo Tina + Cass

• Excerpts from Sunlighten.com Blog post