Use This Trick to Make Your Healthy Habits Stick for Good

If you're serious about building a healthy routine, you need to know how to build a habit loop. 

A habit loop is a habit-building framework that captures decades of behavioral research in three steps: 

1. Cue
2. Routine
3. Reward

Habit loops help you build an intentional routine. If you want to increase the time you spend exercising, meditating, or cooking, this is the tool for the job. 

In this article, we'll talk about all three steps—cue, routine, and reward. Once you master them all, you’ll have the power to build and rebuild your daily routine so that it’s always pushing you toward your goals.


Habit loops: A tried-and-true system

Habit loops aren’t new. The concept is based on decades of research, and it was popularized by the journalist Charles Duhigg in his 2012 book The Power of Habit. Since then, it’s been a go-to trick for people looking to automate positive behaviors.

By the simplest explanation, habit loops allow you to build habits intentionally. If you use them effectively, they can change your life. And that’s because habits are among the most powerful tools in health. 

In one study, researchers analyzed the habits of more than 270,000 people. Compared to those with the worst habits, women and men with the best habits were on track to live 21 and 24 years longer, respectively.¹  (What counts as a "good habit"? Think daily exercise, good sleep, and a healthy diet.)

» Learn more about The Habits that Affect Gut Health


To illustrate how habits works, think about the routines you already follow. You brush your teeth daily, but because it’s a habit, it doesn’t require willpower. Yet the good it does is incredible. Good oral health reduces your risk of diabetes, heart disease, obesity, Alzheimer’s, and cancer.²

Now stack on your other healthy habits. You might reach for water (instead of soda) when you’re thirsty, ride your bike to work, or stretch before bed. As with brushing your teeth, these habits set you on an automated path toward constant improvement.

But building new habits—especially healthy ones—can be tricky. To set a new behavior to autopilot, you need a deliberate strategy. “Until something becomes a habit, it's just a thought process,” says Kristen Gingrich, a therapist based in Maine. “You have to be intentional about doing it repeatedly.” 

Habituation makes that easy. It allows you to do without thinking. And that can lead to compounding health gains over months or even years.

The 3 parts of a habit loop

Cue, routine, and reward: These are the three parts of a habit loop. Let’s break down each one. 

1. Cue
The “trigger” that sets the habit loop in motion

A cue is anything in your environment that reminds your brain of a pre-determined action. It can be a sound, smell, time, place, or person. It can even be a feeling. 

Cues can trigger good habits or bad habits. You can see how the cue works in these examples:

• Time: Think of a 10 p.m. bedtime or 12 p.m. lunch break. Time cues can be powerful, because they occur every day without fail. 
  
  
• Location: Entering your office, home, or gym can trigger a specific set of actions. But “location” can also apply to rooms in your house or even specific pieces of furniture. For instance, when you sink into your couch, you might reflexively start scrolling on your phone. 
  
  If you want to start a new habit, consider starting with where you do it. So if you have trouble working out at home because of distractions, try moving your workouts to a gym or local park. By tying your action to a specific place, it will be easier to turn it into a habit.
  
  
• Existing habits: One strategy for building a new habit is to attach it to a habit that’s already firmly planted in your routine. In that case, the first habit serves as the cue for the next one. This is called “habit stacking.”
  
  You probably already have a few habit stacks. Brushing your teeth might trigger you to floss, which triggers you to wash your face, which triggers you to apply a moisturizer. That’s a habit stack.
  
  By building thoughtful habit stacks, you can create powerful moments of health throughout your day. For example, if you’re trying to decrease your evening screen time, you can put your phone away when you start cooking dinner. Cooking becomes the event that triggers the new behavior. 
  
  
• An emotional state: Stress, boredom, or happiness can all trigger specific habits. These are often unhealthy. Negative emotions, for instance, can trigger smoking, excessive eating, or alcohol abuse.
  
  Tying new positive behaviors to emotional states can be tricky. It requires emotional awareness, for starters. Plus, emotions can be unpredictable. So for building habit loops, time-, location-, and event-based cues often work better.
  
  That said, if you notice you’re currently using emotion to cue an unhealthy habit, it’s smart to replace it with something better. For instance, instead of snacking when you’re sad, you might go for a 5-minute walk.
  
  
• Other people: Your social environment is a powerful influence on habits. People—and yes, that includes you—tend to mirror the behaviors of those around them. 
  
  This can be a drag if you’re surrounded by people with bad habits like heavy drinking or mean behavior. But you can also use social ties to your advantage. 
  
  Try starting a healthy habit with someone you care about. Consider a morning run with a friend or a new plant-based cooking routine with your spouse. By tying the habit to a person, it will be more likely to stick. 

2. Routine

The action or habit you’re trying to automate

The “routine” is the point of the habit loop. This is the action you’re trying to turn into a habit: your daily walk, your healthy lunch, your commitment to drinking more water. It’s the thing you want more of in your life. 

When choosing the ideal routine, it’s best to take small bites. You might want to work up to 45 minutes of running every day, but that’s a big bite. So instead, define your routine as "lacing up and going for a 5-minute walk." 

It may seem like a small step, but stick with it. Once you're doing that habitually, you can progress to a 10-minute run—and then you can keep building.

And if you miss a day with your fledgling habit? No big deal. Just pick it back up tomorrow. It’s important to remember that habit formation isn’t always linear.

“Setbacks and bad days are a normal part of being human,” says Gingrich. “You will inevitably experience days when your habits falter, and it's crucial to acknowledge this as normal.”

3. Reward

The positive reinforcement that makes the habit stick

This is the feeling or prize you get at the end of the habit loop. “First, there is a cue or stimulus, followed by a behavior, and then a reward,” says Alexis Wilbert, Psy.D, a clinical psychologist with a telehealth practice. “If the reward is big enough, then you're going to start the cycle again the next time you have that cue.” 

In a rat study, the reward might be a food pellet at the end of a maze. For you, the reward will vary depending on the habit you’re building.

Often it’s not a physical prize, but a positive feeling you can linger on. Or maybe it’s a harmless indulgence—like listening to your favorite comedy podcast—that you “earn” by going for a run. 

The ideal reward is tied directly to the habit, it occurs immediately afterward (or during), and it brings you joy. But it doesn’t necessarily have to be big. 

Some example rewards might be:

• Waking up feeling refreshed by sticking to a strict bedtime
• Drinking your favorite protein smoothie after your morning workout
• Buying a fancy pen and notebook that you only use during your daily journal session
• Lighting a scented candle or playing relaxing music while you meditate
• Moving $20 into your savings account every time you make dinner at home instead of eating out

Sometimes the reward is ingrained in the experience itself—like when you wake up feeling refreshed after hitting your bedtime. Just be sure you take a moment to appreciate that feeling and connect it back to your habit loop. You want the relationship between habit and reward to stay top of mind.

» Podcast: How To Use Behavioral Science To Build Healthy Habits

Building lasting habits is a skill, and it’s one you can master. It may take some trial and error to find what works best for you, but habit loops can guide the process. 

If you want to identify habits that will have the biggest impact on your body, sign up for InsideTracker.

We’ll analyze your blood results alongside your DNA and fitness tracker data to show you exactly which behaviors you need for optimal health. That might mean taking a specific vitamin or mineral, cooking with an ingredient that will improve your sleep, or adding a new element to your fitness routine.

By pairing science-backed habits with high-impact habit loops, you’ll set yourself up for a long, happy, and healthy life. 

References: 

1. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38065710/
2. https://www.aaosh.org/connect/15-health-issues-caused-by-poor-oral-health