Life today is fast-paced, hectic, always in a hurry, and laden with competition. The anxiety and stress this causes sometimes goes undetected for years – we simply live with the effects that we take for granted because we become distanced from what life should actually be.

Often this build up takes its toll with anxiety or panic attacks, or depression and feelings of being overwhelmed. All of this is stress that the body has been trying to cope with for years. Burnout we call it sometimes. There is an air of resignation about it – as though what else can one expect if one is supposed to keep up the pace. And yet there is a way to manage the strains of a hurried life – it’s called Sophrology.

Why Sophrology works

Sophrology might be best described as relaxation through slow movement. It is a combination of meditation, mindfulness and breathing; a harmony of consciousness and dynamic, focused physical motions to bring about peace and wellbeing in both body and mind.

Through gentle time out with your body and mind, you can learn a series of exercises and mind visioning that can entirely change your life, the way you feel, and the way you react to the pace of your life. Many try to change their lifestyle, which doesn’t always work because you can’t always change your job, or ditch family responsibilities, etc. Sophrology instead gives you tools to use at any time and place to bring you back to harmony – in both body and soul – thus giving you the self-enhancing power to cope instead of being sucked down a spiral of negative emotions.

You may be told to calm down, live for the moment, develop a positive mindset – but these are easier said than done. Sophrology’s purpose is to hone your abilities to do these things through a particular guided process; repeating these actions will ultimately enable them to become second nature, easy to access, and fulfilling to practice. After all, everybody wants to be happier, at peace, and able to re-imagine their lives as manageable and enjoyable.

Achieving calmness

Before you can inculcate any positive tools for managing your life, you have to learn how to calm down. When you are calm you can think more clearly, you can analyse and assess, you can more easily evaluate and make decisions. These capabilities are vital for improving physical and emotional wellbeing. Sophrology has visualisation techniques and body exercises to bring calm and peace – low-key exercises which can be adjusted to suit every individual.

Achieving awareness

In order to conquer your anxiety, you need to become aware of your feelings. You need to be able to ‘listen’ to your emotions. This is the way we reconnect the mind with the body: you become aware of your tension, you know it for what it really is and what may be causing it – and can immediately put Sophrology techniques into play. Recognise the stress, feel it, before it becomes difficult to control and suddenly overwhelms you.

Achieving visualisation

Once you feel your stress rising, you can begin to harness your mind to control negative thoughts. Perceptions can change – you can visualise success in handling a situation, reducing your stress and giving you strength to cope. Unfortunately, long term exposure to stress and anxiety can very easily lead to a pattern of self-reinforcing negative thinking. You can break this habit by literally visualising a better picture in a quiet mind, and reducing harmful emotion. This trains your brain to respond more positively and react in the way you have already determined in your mind.

Achieving positivity

Once you see a positive outcome in your mind, you can achieve positive action. Immediately you are more empowered to cope with daily life, with challenges. You are able to motivate physical action that will confirm the powerful positive image you have in your head. There is tremendous satisfaction in taking the action to meet the success you have already mentally designed. Getting rid of negativity in this way, clears the route for action, makes taking decisions easier, and facilitates the formulation and implementation of plans.

Achieving confidence

Once you master these techniques, you become more powerful in yourself. You are able to build awareness of your own abilities to tackle challenges, find solutions, develop more energy – and realise your power. All of this makes for greater confidence. You are able listen to your body, tune into your mind, find those inner resources you never really developed before. You have greater control through a physical and emotional balance that can change everything.

Looking for a quick fix? The ‘Pump’ technique is very useful

• Stand tall, back straight. Close your eyes, arms to your sides.
• Hone your mind to fix on areas in the body where you feel tension.
• Clench your fists, and take in a deep breath, and hold the breath.
• Now lift your shoulders up and down until you need to breathe out – this

pumping action helps to oxygenate the brain.

• As you exhale, slowly relax your fists as you visualise tension and anxiety draining away through your arms, hands and fingertips.

This exercise technique will help you reduce the physical effects of stress in moments of high tension long enough to clear your head, and perhaps find a better way forward. Once you have learned the full range of life-changing Sophrology methods, you are able to practise these at every occasion you feel you need to slow down, and re-energise. Sophrology delivers a peaceful energy, a harmonised power.

Sophrology: an effective route to a new you

 Currently revitalised as one of the most popular wellness trends in the world, Sophro-Ki® Sophrology translates to the “the study of consciousness in harmony”. It is essentially a holistic system, including physical and mental exercises, which promotes health, well-being, relaxation, and alertness.

Founded in the 1960s by Alfonso Caycedo, a professor of Psychiatry and Neurology in Madrid, Sophro-Ki® Sophrology was first created to treat war veterans suffering from PTSD and depression. Combining techniques from Zen, yoga, meditation and hypnosis, the system allows participants to release and redirect challenging emotions. Positive effects include: more focus, less stress, better sleep, more self-confidence, improved chronic conditions, and greater happiness.

In 2006, Dorna Revie, founded Energy Centre, the first school in the world to offer Sophrologist diploma courses in English. Sophrology Center Online, the newest of Dorna’s projects, has been established to meet the growing demand from around the world.

To find out more, please visit: www.sophrologycenteronline.com

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Pregnancy and childbirth is a time of joy and anticipation – and sometimes much stress. While the excitement can mask trepidation and tension – especially in first-time moms – ensuring this time is experienced with hope, happiness, and calm preparation is important to ensuring that negative thoughts don’t take hold and spoil what should be a most enriching time of your life.

Sophrology provides you with a structured method of coping. Through simple breathing and relaxation exercises, along with guided meditation and visualisation, you can turn this time before, during and after childbirth into one of joy and positive experience. For those who find this time difficult, Sophrology can transform your experience physically, mentally and emotionally.

How do Sophrology and pregnancy connect?

Pregnancy in itself creates new perspectives: your body is changing, and your hormones, moods and way of life are all undergoing adjustment. This is the time when you want to build vitality, confidence and a positive outlook. Sophrology is a comprehensive approach using exercises and visualisation techniques to bring about harmony in both mind and body, and between mind and body.

It is a way of balancing the consciousness while learning to relax the body. Through the guided combination of meditation, relaxation and control of negative thinking, Sophrology helps to bring about the state of mind and body that empowers through calmness and energises through balance. Through this method you will gain:

• An understanding of your inner resources
• More energy and focus
• Greater relaxation and ability to cope
• Ways to handle any discomfort or pain
• The ability to recognise stress and stop it in its tracks
• Better sleep patterns
• A process of connecting with your unborn child in a way that instils joy and anticipation.

 Sophrology and the birth process

 Sophrology trains the mind to listen to physical sensations generated through movement, while at the same time visualising a colour or image to persuade calmness and a positive outcome. In essence, Sophrology works to introduce a state of dynamic relaxation. This is extremely helpful once the birth process begins. You are able to eliminate fears, focus on breathing, and maintain a sense of control and purpose during the birth process. After a few sessions you will be able to:

• Relax physical and emotional tension
• Develop smoother breathing and greater concentration
• Discover tools to manage the pain inherent in contractions.

Sophrology and adjusting after the birth

Using Sophrology exercises after the birth creates deep relaxation, which in turn produces alpha waves in the brain, allowing the brain to rest and regenerate. A positive birth experience gives you and your child the best start in life. Sophrology gives you time to listen to your body, adjust to the way it feels, and the way it is changing back to pre-pregnancy status. The whole point of Sophrology is that you:

• Breathe to create awareness of the life force within you, and now in your child in your arms
• Exercise gently to restore balance and ease your body back to feeling comfortable and your mind positive
• Create a harmonious bond between mind and body, and your baby
• Deal competently with the emotional rollercoaster that pregnancy and birth can induce, analysing feelings, and discarding any negative attitudes from arising
• Accept the transition to the new person that you are now, and the relationship with your child
• Handle family dynamics, expectations, and lifestyle changes in your stride
• Develop a more energetic approach to motherhood.

All this can be achieved over the months through pregnancy and leading up to the birth, so that as soon as baby has arrived, you are powerfully in control of yourself and your emotions. You will learn to listen to your body while recuperating. You will feel rested and motivated. Getting a full night’s sleep may not be possible, but you can learn to adapt to the rhythm of your baby’s sleeping. Wellness can become a reality when it is allowed to flourish through a unique combination of breathing, relaxation, movement and positive visualisation. Learn to overcome stress and access well-being in daily life, which now, with your baby in your arms, offers new and delightful perspective.

Sophrology: an old route to a new you

Currently revitalised as one of the most popular wellness trends in the world, Sophro-Ki® Sophrology translates to the “the study of consciousness in harmony”. It is essentially a holistic system, including physical and mental exercises, which promotes health, well-being, relaxation, and alertness.

Founded in the 1960s by Alfonso Caycedo, a professor of Psychiatry and Neurology in Madrid, Sophro-Ki® Sophrology was first created to treat war veterans suffering from PTSD and depression. Combining techniques from Zen, yoga, meditation and hypnosis, the system allows participants to release and redirect challenging emotions. Positive effects include: more focus, less stress, better sleep, more self-confidence, improved chronic conditions, and greater happiness.

In 2006, Dorna Revie, founded Energy Centre, the first school in the world to offer Sophrologist diploma courses in English. Sophrology Center Online, the newest of Dorna’s projects, has been established to meet the growing demand from around the world.

To find out more, please visit: www.sophrologycenteronline.com

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Emotions are tricky. We are never really certain whether we have them tightly under control or not. They can lurk under a smile or well up in sudden resentment at a remark, or tune into memory and unexpected reminders in casual conversation. We are, generally, what we feel.

That is why sophrology plays such an important role in teaching us how to transform emotions and bring our body and mind into harmony – Healthy body, calm mind, inspired spirit. Sophrology is the science of consciousness in harmony – designed to produce optimal health and wellbeing through the use of specific physical movements and visualisations leading to increased body awareness and an expansive growth in consciousness.

How sophrology works to lift the spirit

• Simple physical and mental exercises are practiced regularly to create a healthy, relaxed body and a calm, alert mind. Sophrology helps people unlock their full potential and reach their best both professionally and personally.
• Sophrology is a natural, healthy alternative to medicine and therapies. It reduces stress, anxiety, anger, frustration, worry, fear and sadness. Once you have practiced the sophrology exercises, and breathing exercises you will become an expert in expanding your consciousness and living the life you’d love to live.
• Typically, you will find your self-confidence improves, along with your ability to maintain better concentration. You will sleep in a calmer, more relaxed manner. Your feeling of inner happiness can be accessed any moment of the day, and bring forth feelings of enablement and gratitude.
• Because you can practice sophrology exercises anywhere, and at any time, they help you with more than just personal issues; the method moves through a range of applications in business, sport, education, relationships, ill-health, as well as childbirth and child rearing.
• As a stress management technique, sophrology helps you to use your mind and your body to work transform heavy emotions of stress and anxiety into lighter ones like happiness and joy. Sophrology revitalises your inner resources and you discover your resilience, calm thinking, and a positive outlook. Sophrology is a dynamic route to a more harmonious spirit.

The power of mood control

You may not believe it, but you can control your moods. By regularly practicing the exercises people typically find that they are generally more understanding, ready to listen, and contemplate situations. People use sophrology to not only overcome fear of failure and fulfil their potential, but also to feel better on a day-to-day basis. Sophrology provides exercises that gradually transform us and …for instance… cause us to react calmly and confidently if a team member makes a mistake. Sophrology gives you the resilience to be less reactive, more capable and more constructively responsive.

Moods can be powerful when they are driven by a positive outlook. Sophrology practise gives you the space to calmly analyse and to change your moods, providing a sense of betterment that is life changing.

By practising sophrology daily you will find that you are smiling more and life seems easier and more enjoyable. The non-judgemental approach helps you to be aware of your perceptions and contemplate the many other ways of perceiving a situation. Through the plasticity of the brain the neural pathways change and you move into a whole new way of being.

Simple breathing techniques and physical movements bring you slowly to a state of dynamic relaxation, allowing you to explore sensations and perceptions, and develop a new awareness.

Sophrology exercises give you many options to deal with emotions, thus helping you to:
• relax and let go
• overcome stress and decrease anxiety
• increase confidence and self-esteem
• deal positively with anger, depression and stress
• enjoy your present experiences, find peace with your past, and feel motivated about the future.

Sophrology: an old route to a new you

Currently revitalised as one of the most popular wellness trends in the world, sophrology translates to the “the study of consciousness in harmony and the values of existence”. It is essentially a holistic system, including physical and mental exercises, that promote health, well-being, relaxation, and alertness.

Founded in 1960 by Prof. Alfonso Caycedo, a professor of Psychiatry and Neurology in the university of Madrid. Sophrology was first created to treat war veterans suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and depression. Combining techniques from Zen, yoga, Buddhism and phenomenology, the method produces positive effects including: increased focus, less stress, better sleep, more self-confidence, improved chronic conditions, and greater happiness.

In 2006, Dorna Revie, founded Energy Centre, the first school in the world to offer Professional Sophrology Diploma Courses in English.
Sophro-Ki Sophrology Center Online, started in 2012, the newest of Dorna’s projects, has been established to meet the growing demand from around the world.

To find out more, please visit: www.sophrologycenteronline.com

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Find your career in the art of relaxation

Sophrology is a relaxation method currently gaining popularity worldwide. In today’s rushed pace of living, finding a way to soothe the nerves, calm the soul, breath anew, and clear the head is more than valuable.

Sophrologists aim to reduce their clients’ stress and produce optimal health and well-being through the application of a specific set of physical and mental exercises that work in tandem to bring the body and spirit into harmony. Through a series of specific breathing exercises, gentle physical tuning, and mindful visualisation techniques, Sophrology engenders fresh perspective, motivation, balance, and emotional re-energising.

Making the art of relaxation your career can be deeply satisfying – and presents growing opportunities worldwide. This highly rewarding and financially viable profession can be followed anywhere in the world, needs little in the way of props, and will see you truly making a difference in people’s lives.

Reasons why Sophrology can make the perfect career

One of the key attractions of this career is that it can easily fall under the self-employment banner. You can choose to run your own business, managing clients on a one-to-one or group basis, or form a partnership with someone in a complementary discipline, such as business coaching or sports therapy. You can also find yourself working in a more mainstream capacity both in the private or public health sectors with doctors, therapists and life coaches – or within corporate organisations.

Employee wellbeing and aspects surrounding this, are currently gaining importance in corporations who seek to make their businesses more stable with regard to human resources, and more profitable with staff who remain happy and loyal to the company.  Sophrology is increasingly being taken up as a tool in the induction process, as well as being incorporated into staff health initiatives because of its proven ‘stress-busting’ techniques.

Even non-profit organisations who seek economical therapies to help those suffering from physical and emotional trauma or long-term mental health issues, are looking at the evident results of Sophrology. Therapists may initially choose to commit a portion of their time to providing sessions for free, which is greatly appreciated by charities, but also builds important relationships with communities, enhances experience, and offers greater reach for the industry.

Benefits of adding Sophrology to your Toolkit

• Sophrology is increasingly being recognised as the new method for self-help, providing an effective way to deal with stress and anxiety on a day-to-day basis.
• For the benefit of your own personal and professional goals, Sophrology is an exciting route to powerfully supplement other humanity courses such as counselling, coaching, physical training, personal development, etc. Whether you are already qualified in any of these fields or are studying Sophrology as a single course, you stand to gain increased positivity, resilience and connectedness with the world around you.
• The benefit of Sophrology is that it can be fully integrated with existing therapies, enabling professionals to broaden their client base and address a wider range of issues that may be presented by clients, such as: pain management, sleep problems, work burn-out, stress and worry, and self-esteem issues, amongst others.
• The main purpose of Sophrology is to expand consciousness and through that discover your hidden capacities, abilities and discover a life that is happier, easier and full of meaning.
• Sophrology as a solution is versatile and dynamic in its approach, providing techniques easy to fit into busy lifestyles, resulting in wider therapeutic results for many more people than might be able to attend actual classes. The daily sophrology exercises will gradually lead your clients to discover their own strengths, quickly change their unhelpful habits and grow their own presence.
• Widely used by business leaders, Olympic athletes, tennis players, rugby and football teams, university students, as well as within family guidance and pre/post-natal care clinics, Sophrology is valued and practised by people interested in reaching their full potential. It is highly regarded as a structured method of ‘conscious awareness’ training, and teaches us how to reach our hopes and dreams. Perhaps a career in Sophrology will provide exactly that for you!

Sophrology: an old route to a new you

 Currently revitalised as one of the most popular wellness trends in the world, Sophro-Ki® Sophrology translates to the “the study of consciousness in harmony”. It is essentially a holistic system, including physical and mental exercises, which promotes health, well-being, relaxation, and alertness.

Founded in the 1960s by Alfonso Caycedo, a professor of Psychiatry and Neurology in Madrid, Sophro-Ki® Sophrology was first created to treat war veterans suffering from PTSD and depression. Combining techniques from Zen, yoga, meditation and hypnosis, the system allows participants to release and redirect challenging emotions. Positive effects include: more focus, less stress, better sleep, more self-confidence, improved chronic conditions, and greater happiness.

In 2006, Dorna Revie, founded Energy Centre, the first school in the world to offer Sophrologist diploma courses in English. Sophrology Center Online, the newest of Dorna’s projects, has been established to meet the growing demand from around the world.

To find out more, please visit: www.sophrologycenteronline.com

“Any positive action directed towards the body and mind has a positive impact on the being as a whole.” ~ Dr Alfonso Caycedo, Neuropsychiatrist

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The power of Sophrology lies with the unique way the technique connects the body and mind to effect balance and change. It affects the way we feel about situations, emotions, action and results. Sophrology is a meditative practice that helps us change our outlook with regard to events, how we experience them, and how we can manage them.

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The past is always with us, they say. We are a combination of our experiences, our present feelings and our hopes for the future. However, sometimes that past can be like a heavy suitcase of old belongings we drag around, allowing it to colour our present experiences and desires. Past experience can be powerful in effect – often preventing us from moving on and living a happier, more fulfilled life.

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One would think, when exercising the body, that we are mindfully connected to our physical movements. But this is not always the case. In fact, when we exercise we often do it automatically, our minds busy with other thoughts and worries. This tendency to wander the mind when trying to tone up the body is when we lose capacity to synchronise mind and body in a way that would result in highly beneficial energy balance.

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