what is habit stacking?

Habit stacking is adding a favorable behavior immediately after a habitual behavior you want to change. For example, after noticing you’ve reflexively picked up your phone, you could put it down and do an easy, positive behavior such as drinking water or a short breathing exercise. 1

• Disrupting the closed loop: Linking the behaviors in time changes the sequence that follows the unwanted habit, interrupting its self-perpetuating pattern and making it easier to intervene. 2
• Changing neural pathways: The added behavior recruits other neural circuits, helping remap the brain’s response pattern and weaken the old habit sequence. 3