To understand what it means to boost your mental fitness using mindfulness and self-awareness techniques, I invite you to do something that looks simple. Stop what you are doing and fold your arms in front of you, across your chest. Simple. We do this action many times a day without thinking about it, always in the same direction.

I want you to try and fold your arms in the opposite direction. If you usually cross your arm left over right, try and do it right over left; and vice versa, if you always fold right over left, try and do it left over right. Do it several times. Then try and mix them up, crossing your arms in alternate directions.

Just think about what it felt like doing that ‘simple’ exercise. We usually don’t have to think about how we fold our arms; we do it. How we fold our arms is deeply ingrained in our brains; it might best be called a habit. It seems complicated, awkward, and maybe even a little frustrating when we try and fold them differently.

When we try to fold our arms in the opposite direction, we have to think about what we are doing; we might have to stop ourselves from doing the exercise ‘wrong’ consciously; be very aware of what we are doing, making slower, deliberate movements. We might even give up, throwing our arms up in the air, as our perseverance and patience reach their limit.

Part of the problem is that folding our arms in the wrong direction maybe even unnatural. It is nothing of the sort; it just means that we have got so used to folding our arms in a specific way that it feels right, and our openness to anything different is very low.

Think about those occasions when you try an established way of doing something, maybe writing with the opposite hand, stopping smoking, or driving on the other side of the road in Europe. How easy was it to fall back into the old pattern of behaviour? Now think about how difficult it is to start exercising if you have not done so for a while, or how easy it is to end up arguing with a significant other, blaming other people, pleasing people, being angry – and how difficult it is to change those behaviours.

To change those behaviours, we must be aware of them, aware of their impact on ourselves and those around us, commit to changing them and have the perseverance (and patience) to try again when things get difficult or we ‘fail’.

Mindfulness practices help us to quieten that internal voice, what I call ‘the stroppy teenager,’ that stops us from changing; the voice that tells us something is too tricky and criticises us for failing, telling us that we are no good. The exercises help us become aware of why we are doing something, opening the door to understanding what we are doing and why, which frees us to develop other habits that may benefit us.