How habit stacking can help you with your supplement routine

For many people, deciding which supplements your body needs, choosing the right brand, and making the investment is the hardest part of starting a supplement routine.

For others, that’s the easy part. The difficult part comes afterwards – committing to taking them regularly. What you’ve essentially committed to is a brand-new habit, an additional task to remember every day. So it can be frustrating to feel as though you’ve invested in something that you keep forgetting to do regularly.

How can we teach ourselves to remember to take our supplements each day? A helpful technique known as habit stacking is commonly used to help people develop new habits and has the potential to transform your supplement routine.

What is habit stacking?

The term ‘habit stacking’ is relatively new. It was coined by author James Clear in his book Atomic Habits but is built on the idea that has existed for a while. It’s the concept of combining habits.

Our brains build up connections between frequently used neurons. This is called synaptic pruning and it happens every time we build a habit. The more you practise a certain habit or hobby, the stronger, faster, and more efficient that connection becomes. It’s the concept of ‘practice makes perfect’.

There will be strong habits and connections you make each day that you might not even be aware of. For example, we’re willing to bet you shower after a workout and brush your teeth every morning and night! It’s these already-existing strong connections that you can take advantage of to build new habits.

How do you habit stack?

The best way to build a new habit is to find a current habit you already do every day and stack your new task or behaviour on top of it – that’s habit stacking. It’s effective because it takes advantage of parts of our day that are already automatic, already a fixed routine.

You might already be habit stacking without realising it. For example, if you do your skincare routine right after brushing your teeth at night, that's habit stacking. Or maybe your New Year's resolution was to build a new habit – like reading or meditating – so you’ve started reading for 15 minutes before bed or meditating for a minute as soon as you wake up.

How can habit stacking help you remember to take your supplements?

You’ve carefully chosen high-quality supplements that meet your body’s needs, and you’re likely feeling optimistic about the benefits. It feels good to take care of yourself, right? But here’s the thing – buying the supplements is only half the battle. The real challenge is remembering to take them, especially at the right time!

However, if you were to incorporate your supplements into your daily activities, you would effectively build them into your routine. Before long, taking them becomes second nature.

Additionally, if you’ve chosen a certain supplement for a specific reason, you can stack it onto a habit related to the reason you’ve selected them, which would guarantee you take them at the right time.

A step-by-step to incorporating The Herbtender supplements into your routine via habit stacking

The habit you might want to attach your supplements to will depend on which product you’re taking.

For Doze & Dream, we recommend taking two capsules before bed. So you could stack this habit on top of one you do right before you go to sleep – like brushing your teeth or drinking your bedtime tea. If you feel like you need an extra nudge remembering to do that, why not keep your Doze & Dream jar next to your toothbrush or night-time tea bags? Make it obvious as James Clear writes in Atomic Habits.

If your supplement of choice is Focus & Clarity, you’re likely taking this to help you focus on your daily tasks or work. Our recommendation is to take two capsules in the morning, so why not take them as you fire up your computer? You could keep them on your desk to help you remember.

Rise & Shine is designed to give you a gentle boost to start your day the right way. We recommend taking two capsules before breakfast, so what better time to take them than when you’re boiling the kettle for that all-important morning brew? And where better to keep them for that than next to the kettle?

When you choose to implement this new habit matters, too. If you want to take your supplements in the morning, but family mornings are chaos for you from the moment you step outside your bedroom, perhaps keep them on your bedside table and take them as soon as you wake up. The best time for you to incorporate a new habit will depend entirely on your personal routine, so make sure you’re making it realistic and achievable for yourself.

Supplement stacking

If you fancy going one step further to upgrade your supplement routine, try supplement stacking.

Supplement stacking involves combining multiple supplements to maximise the benefits. You could supplement stack Focus & Clarity for cognitive focus with caffeine, omega-3s and adaptogens like Rhodiola. For immunity, combine Daily Defence with vitamin D and probiotics.

The right stack can improve absorption and synergy. Just be sure to check dosages and interactions between ingredients!

If you’ve invested in a new supplement routine to take better care of your mind and body, you owe it to yourself to be intentional with your routine and see it through.

With habit stacking, you give yourself a fighting chance of sticking to your new routine. The reason it works so well is because your current habits are already ingrained in your brain. You have daily routines and behaviours that you have unknowingly been strengthening over years.

Stacking a new habit onto one of these pre-established behaviours makes it much more likely that you’ll stick to the new one. Give it a try and see how it works for you. Happy stacking!