Sophrology: Meet your new stress-busting buddy

Sophrology may just seem like another relaxation fad at first sight but it’s actually been around since the 60s. While relatively unknown in the English-speaking world, it is a tried and tested stress-relieving method in other parts of the world. In France and Switzerland, sophrology practiced  by students and athletes among others as a practical way to manage stress.

Sophrology was created by neuropsychiatrist Professor Alfonso Caycedo after years of research into relaxation, meditation, zen and yoga.It focuses on both mental and physical relaxation.  Typical sophrology exercises focus on breathing, tensing and relaxing muscles and visualisation techniques.

Sophrology is also great for your sleep, whether you use it to reduce stress during the day or to combat racing thoughts at bedtime. 

Dreem’s sophrology exercises

In fact, we recently added 3 new sophrology techniques to the Dreem headband’s relaxation library to help you get to sleep feeling calmer:

Mind Palace

A classic visualisation exercise that is used in sophrology to reduce stress and anxiety. A vocal track guides you as you imagine a physical place of your choosing down to the smallest detail. Just think of a place where you feel particularly calm, relaxed and safe.

Calming

A guided sophrology exercise that helps you achieve an intense state of physical and mental calm

Reminiscene

A visualization exercise that invites you to sink into a happy memory. As for all our relaxation techniques, you can mix and match the exercise of your choosing with a sound background.

Once questioned for their efficacy, relaxation techniques like sophrology are now recognized by the medical community. What’s more they have proven effective on stress, anxiety and the mental rumination that can stop sleep. These techniques are used by Dreem to create adapted falling asleep exercises, just one of the headband’s active audio features.