Doing lunges while brushing your teeth, and other ways to stack healthy habits

By Albert Stumm

As simple as it sounds, Lindsay Kee’s revamped exercise routine began with standing up to take the dog out.

She decided to do a few standing stretches before leaving and did some squats or jumping jacks when she got back home. Over time she added to the routine, and now it’s been over a year that she consistently exercises around the dog walk.

“Adding it to something I was already doing, it just took so much pressure out of it,”said Kee, an executive coach in Portland, Oregon. “I’ve found it to be really effective in helping me be consistent with things that I really do want to do.”

What Kee was doing is called habit stacking, a term coined by author S.J. Scott in his 2014 book of the same name. It also goes by habit pairing or piggybacking. The premise is intuitive: Attach a behavior you