When your wellness routine becomes an overwhelmingly long list of disconnected tasks, ticking all those boxes off your to-do list can create the anxiety and overwhelm you were trying to escape. Especially if you have a propensity for perfectionism, your daily wellness rituals can become another form of striving for unrealistic perfection. This can lead to guilt and shame when you inevitably fall short. Instead of achieving what a wellness routine aims for, which is becoming grounded in the present moment, decreasing your anxiety, and helping you to find calm in an already chaotic world and life.
Health and wellness beginners may become overwhelmed going from 0 to 100 with wellness trends. Wellness stacking is a simpler, softer way to increase your overall well-being while still being intentional about becoming a better version of you.
Sustainable Wellness Stacking-
If you’re not at a place to complete a full wellness transformation with set guidelines and daily goals like Operation 66 or 75 hotter, including wellness stacking into your daily life and slowly building good habits, can be a less intense start to creating a wellness routine that you can sustain and be proud of.
The key to wellness stacking is to stack a habit on top of an already established habit. This will link them together, causing you to remember said habit and be more likely to stick with it. You might be familiar with the concept of habit stacking if you’ve read or heard of James Clear’s best-selling book “Atomic Habits.” Instead of focusing on work or productivity, focus on wellness activities that can improve your mindset, physical health, and emotional well-being.
Dopamine Hit-
The wellness activities you include in your stack can induce feel-good hormones like dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins. Not only will you receive a mood boost from the activity itself, but also when you complete said activity. Wellness stacking can take this up a notch when you achieve multiple steps in your wellness routine in one go.
Dopamine floods your system when you accomplish a goal and check something off your to-do list. This entices you to continue said activity in the future. So not only will you be releasing endorphins after a workout or serotonin from taking a walk in the sunshine, but also double dopamine from achieving not 1 but multiple good-for-you tasks.
For example, some wellness stacking ideas are:
- Eating breakfast + taking your daily vitamins
- Brewing morning coffee + thinking of 3 things you’re grateful for
- Meditation + breathwork
- Working out + stretching after
- Making a cup of tea + reading 10 pages of a book
- Journaling + writing or saying 10 positive affirmations in the mirror
- Waking up + drinking a full 8oz glass of water
- Bedtime routine + 10 minutes of tidying up your space
- Visualization + creative activity (writing, art, making music)
- Acupressure mat + red light therapy mask
- Going for a hot girl walk + listening to your favourite podcast
A Guide To Wellness Stacking:
Start Slow-
Don’t fall into the trap of trying to add too many things at once. Start slow by adding just one habit until it’s fully formed and solidified into your routine. This might take you around one week, give or take. Then you can add another and continue tacking them on until you feel your wellness stack is complete. Adding too many things at once can lead to overwhelm and mental fatigue. Wellness stacking is not a quick race to the finish line. It’s an intentional baby step towards better overall wellness.
Personalize-
Make your wellness stack as personal as possible so it makes sense for you. The more you enjoy and find relaxation in your daily wellness stacks, the more likely you are to stick with it, especially in the beginning. Once you get used to your daily routine and it becomes automatic, you’ll find comfort in the consistency you’ve shown yourself.
Just like you hope others show up for you in life, show up for yourself and keep the promises you make to yourself. It’ll help you gain confidence and increase your self-esteem when you practice discipline and reliability.
Time Crunch-
Your day is likely already filled and busy. Trying to fill it with several long tasks probably won’t work for you. That’s why wellness stacking keeps your schedule tight and compact. Instead of completing many activities sporadically throughout the day, get it all done in one quick time block.
Commit to whatever block of time you can follow through with, whether that’s 20 or 30 minutes or an hour. This might look like a quick 15-minute at-home Pilates session, followed by 10 minutes of full-body stretching, and finishing with a 5-minute visualization meditation.
Decision Fatigue-
You already have a lot of decisions to make throughout the day. What you’ll eat for breakfast, what outfit you’re gonna wear, decisions at work, decisions in your personal life, daily admin tasks, what you’re going to eat for dinner, etc. By wellness stacking, the decisions are already made for you.
When you’re eating breakfast, you’re also going to take your daily vitamins, or when you make your nightly cup of tea, you’re going to read at least 10 pages in your book. Don’t switch up your wellness stack; keep it consistent to eliminate decision fatigue. If you think one of your wellness stacking combos would pair better with another activity, wait until after you’ve fully formed said habit before switching it up.
Final Thoughts-
Carving out time during your day for your wellness stack can help you form and solidify healthy habits. These self-care routines can help to fortify your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. They also reduce decision fatigue by letting you know exactly what habit is coming next.
Start slow by adding one good habit to your wellness stack at a time. Choose the activities or workout routines that you genuinely enjoy so that they’re easier to stick to. Set a time frame so that you can complete your wellness stacking habits without becoming overwhelmed or overburdened. Hopefully, wellness stacking is your key to successful habit building to help you feel better inside and out.
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