1. Befriend your brain.

To turn an action into a habit, the brain needs repetition and reward. Repetition means doing an action enough times that it’s easily done without thinking, like brushing your teeth. But to really make a new habit take hold, we need to feel a sense of satisfaction, too. When we expect something good to happen, the brain releases dopamine, a feel-good chemical that makes us want more. That’s why rewarding ourselves – even with something as simple as a fist bump or five-minute break – helps us lock in healthy new habits. Make it easy to repeat your new habit and be sure to reward yourself each time. Your brain will associate the new behavior with feelings of satisfaction, motivating you to keep up the good work.

2. Start small.

“Creating tiny positive habits is the path to developing much bigger ones,” says Stanford behavior scientist B.J. Fogg. “…If you want to create long-term change, start small.” We often don’t stick to healthy habits simply because we take on too much. Fogg suggests starting with actions so small they might seem insignificant at first, like 30 seconds of a new activity. That helps you quickly wire the new habit into your brain. “The more stressed you are and the less time you have, the more appropriate this method is for you,” Fogg says. Make your new habit bite-sized and let it grow from there.

3. Stay motivated by loving yourself. 

If feeling good motivates us to stay with a healthy habit, it makes sense that feeling bad has the opposite effect. Writer Carina Wolff says, “As part of cultivating a healthy mind and body, we need to start… participating in habits that encourage self-love.” What do self-love habits look like? You can find lots of ideas in Lucero, a gamified wellness app for tweens, teens and their Crew (that means you!) It’s like a daily vitamin for self-care habits like mindfulness, positive self-talk and connecting with yourself and others. Loving yourself makes you happier and inspires you to go for your goals.

4. Design systems for success.

In the book Atomic Habits, author James Clear says we can set ourselves up for success by designing systems that support our goals. “Goals are about the results you want to achieve. Systems are about the processes that lead to those results,” says Clear. If your goal is to exercise daily, how can you make it easier and more fun to get your workout in? Keep your gym bag in the car. Download an upbeat playlist. Invite friends and family members to join you for hikes or pickleball. Think about how you will deal with setbacks, too: What are your backup plans and motivators for down days? How will you handle competing commitments? Simplify success by planning in advance.

5. Know your ABCs. B.J. Fogg provides a simple recipe for successful habits: Anchor–Behavior–Celebration. An anchor is an existing routine that serves as a reminder for the behavior (your new habit):

• After I sit down at my desk, I will take three slow, deep breaths.
• After I brush my teeth, I will do two push ups.

Celebration is any action that gives you a sense of completion and satisfaction, like giving yourself a pat on the back or saying, “I’m awesome!” Fogg’s formula is all about making new habits sustainable, so our brains get better at adapting to change. And science says that’s the best way to build healthy habits: one tiny step at a time.

A habit is automatic, something we don’t have to think about. But habit formation isn’t just about taking the easy way out; it\’s actually a  brilliant neurocognitive strategy that helps our brains manage the vast amounts of information we process every day. Habits free up energy to learn, solve problems and handle daily tasks without overloading our brains.

Understanding the science of building healthy habits is especially important for parents and caregivers of tweens and teens. Habits can either help young people stay healthy or they can stand in the way. “Habits play an important role in our health,” says Dr. Nora Volkow, director of NIH’s National Institute on Drug Abuse. “Understanding the biology of how we develop routines that may be harmful to us, and how to break those routines and embrace new ones, could help us change our lifestyles and adopt healthier behaviors.” Here are four facts you need to know to help your teen build healthy habits:

1. Tiny increments lead to big change. 

In the book Atomic Habits, author James Clear writes, “Too often, we convince ourselves that massive success requires massive action. Improving by 1 percent isn’t particularly notable… but it can be far more meaningful, especially in the long run.” Clear points out that a 1% improvement each day for a year means you’re 37x better by the end of it. And while dramatic actions can be motivating at first, they disrupt our routines and are difficult to maintain. To make healthy habits stick, teens need to know that small, consistent efforts lead to long-term improvement.

2. Habits add up over time. 

“The effects of your habits multiply as you repeat them,” says Clear. We may not notice the effects of our daily habits as we’re going through our normal routine. But think about a habit’s cumulative impact over time: spending 5 minutes a day for one year meditating, connecting with others or exercising versus the same 5 minutes doom-scrolling on social media. The big picture can be overwhelming, but we can teach teens that success is about pointing themselves in the direction of their goals and taking small steps until they arrive.

3. It should be easy and feel good to practice self-care.

Stanford researcher and behavior scientist BJ Fogg says that a big part of why we don’t embrace healthy habits is that we think change has to be hard. But in his own experiments, Fogg found that simple, fun changes (like doing two push-ups every time he went to the bathroom) were easy to maintain and made him feel good. That led to more positive habits: “As I accumulated dozens of new habits – mostly tiny ones – they combined to create a transformation. Sustaining all this did not feel hard.” Parents and caregivers can set a precedent for making healthy habits easy by doing self-care together with teens and focusing on goals that are both meaningful and fun.

4. Lucero makes daily healthy habits easy for teens.

Lucero is a youth-driven, therapist-approved gamified wellness app for tweens, teens and their Crew (yes, that means you!) It’s designed to make daily healthy habits simple and fun, because science shows that’s the best way to support teens’ mental health and overall well-being. Lucero features 84+ gamified micro-lessons on topics like self-confidence, 600+ customized self-care activities, and ways for teens to track their progress and stay connected to people who radically support them. It’s a fun and engaging wellness app for practicing emotional regulation and – best of all – it takes just a few minutes a day to spark a lifetime of healthy habits!

• Link habits to big goals.

The goals that matter most to teens can inspire them to stick with healthy habits. Because of their stage of brain development, teens often live moment-to-moment instead of planning progress towards their goals. But when teens know that achievement depends on specific, consistent efforts, they’re more likely to develop goal-supporting habits like eating healthy to boost athletic performance or getting enough sleep when they have a big test. Talk to your teen often about what they dream about and what sparks their curiosity. Then help them connect everyday choices to their long-term goals and evaluate whether or not their current habits are likely to lead to success.

• Identify keystone habits.

Certain routines can lead to a cascade of other positive habits. For example, when Sara’s fourteen-year-old daughter Zoe joined the cross country team, she suddenly started asking for healthier snacks and going to bed earlier so she could be at her best for morning practice. Sara says, “I literally said, ‘Who are you and what have you done with Zoe?’ but I’m amazed at how motivated she is to take care of her body now.” According to author Charles Duhigg, keystone habits start \”chain reactions that help other good habits take hold.” When your teen has a goal they care about, help them identify one or two new habits to ensure success. Once they get started, they may find that the momentum leads to lots more positive change.

• Create the right context.

Teens, like adults, often wrestle with self-judgment and frustration when they’re trying to create a healthy habit or let go of an unhealthy one. They may genuinely want to make better choices but find that it’s just too hard to go for a run when their friends want to play video games or snack on carrot sticks instead of Takis. Remind teens that habits form because our brains like to make things easy and efficient. To instill a new habit we need to make it as simple as possible to do the desired behavior and as hard as possible to do the undesired behavior. That might mean keeping a pair of running shoes by the front door, clearing unhealthy snacks out of the pantry and fridge, or setting up a distraction-free study zone. Help your teen brainstorm how to make healthy habits so easy they don’t have to think about it.

• Take advantage of positive peer pressure.

Positive peer pressure is more about encouragement and support than it is about actual pressure. When teens know their friends support them and want them to be the best version of themselves, it helps them commit to healthier habits. Seventeen-year-old Nicole says, “When I’m trying to do better with a habit, I get one of my friends to do it with me. Like, right now my friend and I are trying to drink water instead of soda. We remind each other to always bring our water bottles and it’s easier to not drink soda if I know we’re doing it together.” Teens also benefit from positive peer pressure when they take part in team sports and group academic and extracurricular activities. Working towards shared goals with peers is extra-motivating and encourages teens to develop lasting positive habits.

• Choose the right kind of reward.

We’d all love our teens to make healthy choices based on intrinsic motivation– doing something because it is satisfying in and of itself– instead of extrinsic motivation, or doing something because a reward is expected. But researchers agree that incentives can help people get into the groove when forming a new habit. Help your teen pick something enjoyable they can reward themselves with each time they complete a desired task, like ten minutes of game time when they finish their homework or workout. To build self-efficacy, make sure the reward is something your teen can do for themselves. That way, they’re completely responsible for self-motivation and monitoring their own progress. The right reward gives teens something to look forward to until the sense of accomplishment kicks in to keep them going.