When it comes to making lifestyle changes in an intuitive and holistic way, it can be challenging to find the right balance. Most of the guides focus on quick fixes and cheat codes for immediate results. However, creating meaningful and impactful change is key to sustaining long-term benefits for your beauty, health, and wellness. That being said, you might be thinking, are there methods that can help with consistency? Yes! We’re fans of a method called habit stacking for maximizing our goals to become our truest and most connected selves. Read below as we unpack this health-oriented hack.
What Is Habit Stacking?
Habit-stacking aims to create simple and repeatable routines that correlate with another. The goal is to have these mini-habits become something done on auto-pilot. You do this by identifying an existing set of actions done in the same order and way each day. Then piggyback habits that could naturally follow them.
Linking habits together is a way of hacking existing neural pathways in your brain, building on them, and resulting in a positive change in your life. As you perform the stacked actions every day, they become part of your daily routine.
Here are some guidelines:
♦ Each stacked habit should take less than five minutes to complete.
♦ Each habit should help improve your life.
♦ Each habit should be simple to complete.
♦ Each habit should be able to follow a step-by-step checklist that you can refer to.
♦ Each habit should fit into your lifestyle.
For example, let’s say you boil water for matcha tea every morning when you wake up, and you’ve been meaning to find the time to journal. While tea is brewing, take those 5 minutes to jot down your thoughts for the day. Soon, your mind will begin associating brewing time with reflecting and composing your thoughts. After a while, it’ll be a smooth, seamless transition from one habit to the next and will therefore last.
How to Start Habit Stacking
The easiest way to start is to jot down all your daily patterns. Here’s an example:
♦ Wake up
♦ Wash face
♦ Brush teeth
♦ Make tea
♦ Get dressed
♦ Get ready for bed
Now, add in small corresponding new habits, which can look like:
Wake up > Drink a glass of warm lemon water
Brush teeth > Wash face with Celestial Cleanser
Apply moisturizing Quench Crème > Apply Tru Alchemy’s cooling Eye Elixir
Make tea > Write in your gratitude journal
Get dressed > Lay out your yoga clothes as a reminder
Get ready for bed > Wash face with Celestial Cleanser
Apply moisturizing Quench Crème > Apply Tru Alchemy’s cooling Eye Elixir
Write in gratitude journal > Play relaxing meditation chimes music to unwind
After some time, those initial habits will begin automatically triggering the other. Then, after a few months, the benefits will be more present.
How to Habit Stack Your Skincare Ritual
Habit stacking can be specified to say your skincare ritual. At the heart of Tru Alchemy’s intention is to essentially pair your skincare routine with your daily ritual of self-care to not only nourish your body but to nurture your mind and soul as well – in a holistic way.
A good place to start is to evoke four senses while beginning the practice of a nightly skincare ritual to encourage mindfulness and being present.
To set the tone with touch and sight, try changing into a robe or loose, comfortable clothing before bed and creating relaxing lighting. You can use a natural Himalayan salt lamp, candle, or simply dim the lights in your bathroom.
For sound, you can immerse yourself in a sound bath of meditation chimes, white noise, or relaxing music. To focus on scent, light scented candles or bring your attention to the calming melon scent of Tru Alchemy's Celestial Cleanser.
As you go through your skincare steps and focus on the senses, your stresses and cluttered thoughts from a hectic day will melt away, and you’ll emerge not only glowing with a hydrated complexion but also in a tranquil state, ready for slumber. You’ll begin to associate your nightly ritual with this tranquil transition.
Take Away
In order to become our best selves, we must find a balance between being intuitive and intentional. This practice finds a happy balance of the two while being cumulative and something you can begin here and now. Take advantage of the neural pathways that are already ingrained as second nature and use those to build on and create lasting change. There are so many areas that this can be incorporated into when it comes to your lifestyle, and focusing and expanding on your skincare ritual is a simple way to start.
