A habit is an action, choice, or decision that you perform on a regular basis. When can you call a new action a habit? That depends. Perhaps when the action reaches automaticity; doing the thing without thinking about it. When it becomes rote. 

For example, you automatically begin flossing after brushing. Your mind is elsewhere, perhaps preparing for the upcoming meeting or rethinking yesterday's events. 

But what is the amount of time it will take you to create a new desirable habit? The number of days may vary from person to person, the level of difficulty, and many other factors.

What Healthy Habits Are Most Important

The healthy habits you prioritize may differ from the ones I choose to incorporate into my daily routine. With so many ways we all differ, it makes sense that we will prioritize different habits. 

As I mentioned in this podcast episode, your family medical history might factor into which habits you incorporate first. For example, if both of your parents have heart disease, you might want to add preventative measures to the top of your priority list.

In addition, genetics play a role, so if you have had genetic testing, you have information that could potentially add years to your healthspan. 

How Long Does it Take to Develop a Good Habit?

The idea that it takes 21 days to form a habit comes from a plastic surgeon. In Dr. Maxwell Maltz's 1960 book, Psycho-Cyberneticshe stated that it takes a "minimum" of 21 days for a person to get accustomed to their new look. Over the years, people began to say it takes 21 days to form a habit. (Kind of like the gossip game where the concept changes each time it is repeated.)

The truth is it could take up to a year to form a new habit. There truly is no magic number of times to repeat a healthy habit before it becomes second nature. 

It is easier to form a new "good habit" than it is to break an old "bad habit." (Although, James Clear, in his bestseller, "Atomic Habits" points out there are no good or bad habits, only effective ones.)

Recent studies show that performing your new habit consistently in a shorter time frame with context yields better results. By context, they mean associating the habit with something you already automatically do. (This is also referred to as habit stacking.)

For example, you'd like to drink more water. You can habit stack by planning to fill your water bottle when you fill your coffee cup. Making the statement of association out loud may also help. Your statement would be, "when I fill my coffee cup, I also pour a glass of water."

This works because you already have a coffee habit, now you're tagging the new desired habit onto the one you already have. 

Forming New Habits

Cue. Routine. Reward. Repeat. This is a "habit loop" according to Charles Duhigg, in his wildly popular book, "The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business." He says that once we know how habits work it's easier to fiddle with the gears (make changes that stick.)

In his book, Duhigg explains how they study habits and goes in-depth about how they experiment with rats in mazes, giving them rewards in various places. He explains that habits, whether good or bad, are encoded into the structure of our brains. So a bad habit never goes away. If you quit smoking, that bad habit is still lurking in your brain,