Too small to fail

Chronic conditions like diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease are enormous modern-day hurdles, but the behaviors that help prevent them don’t have to be. Around the world, noncommunicable diseases underly roughly three-quarters of all deaths. Yet, small changes to our daily behaviors can reduce our risk of developing chronic diseases, especially when they lead to better sleep, more movement, improved stress management and healthier eating.  

Arianna Huffington, founder and CEO of behavior change technology company Thrive Global, introduced the concept of “microsteps” to help people improve their health and move from merely surviving to thriving. The strategy, based on insights from behavioral scientists at Stanford Medicine and elsewhere, relies on tiny, science-backed actions designed to fit into real lives and to compound over time: Think about charging your phone outside the bedroom, taking a 60-second pause between meetings or writing down a priority task before bed rather than losing sleep trying to remember it. Instead of grand gestures, these low-friction actions build momentum and resilience.

In the following conversation, Maya Adam, MD, PhD, Director of Health Media Innovation at Stanford Medicine and host of the Health Compass podcast, spoke with Huffington about what it takes to make healthy choices the easy default.

Maya Adam: You’ve championed the idea that small, science-backed changes can have a profound impact on our well-being. How did your focus on “microsteps” come about?

Arianna Huffington: Behavior change is difficult, but there’s a lot of solid science on what makes it more likely.

We’ve worked with a great group of behavior change scientists, including behavioral economists Dr. Kevin Volpp and Dr. David Asch at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

And what the science shows is that the best way to start a new habit is to start small — in fact, as small as possible. So, all the five foundational health behaviors we work on — food, movement, sleep, stress management and connection — are broken down into microsteps that are designed to be too small to fail.

Adam: In public health, we often struggle with bridging the gap between knowing what’s healthy and actually doing it. How can we help people move from awareness to sustainable action when it comes to lifestyle habits?

Huffington: That’s a great way of putting it — and a core part of Thrive’s mission is just that: helping people move from awareness to action. It’s like the doctor telling us to eat a Mediterranean diet or become a gym person. Of course, eating healthier and getting some exercise are things most of us know we should do, but simply being told to do them doesn’t set us up for success. People don’t know where to start, so they give up.

Microsteps are the way to move from awareness to action. It’s about lowering the friction as much as possible to make the healthier choice the easier choice. By taking just one small step — and celebrating small wins when we do and not judging ourselves on those days when for whatever reasons we don’t — we slowly gain momentum and begin to create healthier habits.

Adam: Sleep is a signature theme in your work. What simple things can people do to improve sleep in high-demand jobs, and how do you persuade leaders to dedicate time to rest?

Huffington: Persuading leaders has gotten a lot easier as more have come to recognize that prioritizing key daily behaviors doesn’t take away from high performance but, rather, is an essential element of high performance. Sleep isn’t indulgent — it’s simply part of the job of being an effective leader.

My favorite sleep microstep is to pick a time at night when you turn off your devices — and gently escort them out of your bedroom. Our phones are repositories of everything we need to put away to allow us to sleep — our to-do lists, our inboxes, the demands of the day. Charging our devices in another room allows us to wake up as recharged as our phones. And if that’s hard for seven nights a week, start with one!

Adam: What are options for people who are time-crunched, carry caregiving burdens or lack control over their schedule?

Huffington: By making microsteps too small to fail, we also make them more accessible and equitable. For example, instead of telling you to get more exercise or sign up for a gym membership, we suggest creative ways to add more movement to your day — such as adding a moment of movement onto something you already do, like doing a few calf raises while you wait in line or a few squats after you brush your teeth.

And this is important: A judgment-free zone is key. If a specific microstep doesn’t resonate with you or feels beyond your reach right now — for any reason — that’s OK. It’s all about finding options that are relevant and feasible for you.

Adam: If you could rewrite one workplace norm tomorrow to reduce burnout, what would it be?

Huffington: Small breaks would be built into the workday. That’s why at Thrive we created a 60-second tool called Reset that is embedded in the workflow.Focusing on conscious breathing — along with images and music that give us joy and gratitude for just 60 seconds — has a dramatic effect on the brain, moving us from the sympathetic to the parasympathetic nervous system and getting us out of the fight-or-flight response.

 Of course, stress in life and at work is inevitable, but cumulative stress — which leads to burnout — is avoidable. And it would be great if more workplaces created a norm of building short breaks into the workday and into the workflow.