How we reported this story: Marisa McMillan is a health journalist and former columnist for Outside‘s health history column, Fit Through Time. She’s incorporated habit stacking into her own life and spoke with psychologist Craig Kain, PhD, about how we can use the method to live a longer, healthier life. Longevity has been the health buzzword for a minute now.
Many of us are chasing it in some form or another. Maybe it’s by working out as much as our schedule allows, prioritizing sleep, or leaning into the biohacking world. Wherever we land, it can be hard to keep up.
I know it is for me, especially with an infant daughter. But a study from the University of Sydney, published in the journal eClinicalMedicine in 2026, found that living a long life doesn’t have to be that hard. The study followed nearly 60,000 adults over eight years and found that improvements in sleep, movement, and nutrition were associated with up to 9.35 additional years of life and 9.45 additional years of healthspan. (Healthspan refers to years of life where you’re in good health; lifespan just refers to how long you live but doesn’t account for life quality.) This meant getting between seven and eight hours of sleep each night, doing at least 40 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) each day, and eating a healthy diet.
But the most interesting finding was the life adjustments needed to add one year to your life. Just five more minutes of sleep, two more minutes of MVPA, and improved diet quality—like eating one-half cup more veggies—each day were associated with an extra year of life. That sounds easy enough, right?
But the hard part is keeping up with it. Sure, I could get more sleep tonight, but what about tomorrow when my daughter wakes up or gets sick? That’s where habit stacking comes in.
Habit stacking is the practice of attaching a new behavior to one you already do consistently, using an existing routine as an anchor. Here’s how to add habit stacking into your life and use the method to live a longer, healthier life. The term “habit stacking” was popularized by James Clear in his New York Times bestselling book Atomic Habits and originated from behavioral scientist BJ Fogg’s work.
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