Sophrology Sleep Exercise

Sophrology Sleep and 2 exercises. The human brain and body are programmed through repetition. If we want to sleep better, learn a sport or subject, we need to regularly repeat the process until our muscles and neural pathways start to automatically function according to the training. It is important to repeat the Sleep exercises until the benefits and way of functioning are integrated into daily life.

Happy Listening!

Transcript

Hello and welcome.

I'm Sophie Nolas,

Your Sophrologist.

And I'm going to guide you through this exercise.

And this exercise is a Sophrology sleep exercise.

And we will be focusing on the second system of the body in Sophrology,

Which is the chest area,

The underside of the arms and the palms of the hands.

We'll be doing two exercises for this system.

And then we're going to do an exercise to improve our sleep.

So wherever you are in being able to sleep now,

This exercise should improve your sleep so that you get even more benefit from it the more you do it.

And you feel even more energized and better when you wake up in the morning.

And for this exercise,

We're going to start by standing up.

If you have a chair that you're sitting on,

Standing up in front of the chair with your feet shoulder distance apart and your knees slightly bent,

You can choose to do this exercise lying down as well.

And just becoming aware of your body between the earth and the sky.

And now I become aware of my breathing as if my whole body is breathing,

Breathing and renewing.

And then I become aware of the sounds far away,

Of sounds nearer at hand and of sounds from my own breathing,

My heartbeat.

And I welcome those sounds as being part of life without trying to work out what they are.

And now I concentrate on my body starting with my head,

Witness of my eyes and noticing the muscles around my eyes,

Space between my eyes,

My nose,

Mouth,

My ears,

My brain,

The back of my head and the space around my head.

And then I become aware of my neck and throat,

Shoulders,

The back of the arms and the back of the hands.

I become aware of the chest area and the upper back,

Underside of the arms and hands.

And then the sternum,

The area between the sternum and the navel and all the internal organs and the middle of the back.

I become aware of the hip area,

The upper legs,

The knees,

The lower legs,

The ankles,

Feet and toes.

Then I become aware of the whole of my body,

The weight of my body,

Temperature of my body and the size of my body.

And now I breathe out fully emptying the stomach and lungs.

Breathe in fully through the nose and I hold my breath.

I lift my arms above my head clasping my hands and I tense the whole of my body.

Tense,

Tense,

A bit more,

A bit more,

Holding the breath,

A bit more and I release.

Releasing,

Relaxing and letting go,

Bringing the hands to the centre of the forehead and releasing any tensions,

Both mental and physical.

Now bringing the hands to the centre of the throat,

Releasing any tensions,

Both mental and physical,

Just breathing out any tensions.

Bringing the hands to the middle of the chest and releasing any unwanted tensions.

Bringing the hands to the sternum and breathing out any tensions.

Taking the hands down just below the belly button and breathing out any tensions,

Both remaining mental and physical.

And now for the whole body,

Bringing the hands to the navel area and breathing out any tensions that still remain in the body.

And then if you have a chair available,

Feeling for the chair behind and sitting down.

And we're going to sit back into the chair with our palms down on our thighs and this is called an integration position.

And here we're just becoming aware of all the physical sensations that are happening in the body right now.

Any tingling,

Warmth,

Cold,

Whatever you notice that's happening physically in your body.

And now we're going to start breathing warmth into the body.

And as we breathe in,

We're diffusing the warmth through the body systems.

And as we breathe out,

We send love and gratitude to all the cells of the body.

We're going to start by breathing into the legs.

And as I breathe in,

I become very aware of my legs.

As if I'm breathing warmth into the legs.

It may help to do this by imagining I'm breathing in energy from the sun or the earth.

Just breathing in vital energy that's warming up my legs.

As I breathe out,

I allow this warmth to diffuse into all parts of my legs,

Especially in the organs.

I breathe in vital energy,

I breathe out and I send love and gratitude into the whole of the body's legs.

And awareness of the temperature of my legs.

And now I breathe in energy up into the stomach area between the sternum and the navel.

As I breathe in,

I become very aware of the shape and presence of this area and the internal organs.

As I breathe out,

I feel the warmth diffusing,

Moving out into each and every part of this area between the sternum and the navel.

Become very aware of the temperature of this area.

Breathe in energy up into the chest area,

The underside of the arms and the palms.

And awareness as I breathe in,

Breathing in warm energy and as I breathe out,

Sending love and gratitude,

Diffusing this into each and every cell of that system.

Breathe in energy into the neck,

The shoulders,

The outer arms and hands.

And as I breathe out,

I diffuse this warm energy throughout this whole area of the body,

Sending love and gratitude to each and every cell.

And breathe in energy up into the head.

Breathe in and become very aware of your head.

As I breathe out,

Just sharing each and every cell this warm energy,

Diffusing the energy throughout the cells,

Sending love and gratitude and awareness of the warmth that the head is now feeling.

And then I breathe in energy up into the whole body.

Become very aware of each and every part of the body as I breathe out.

I diffuse this warm energy into each and every cell of the body,

Feeling the warmth spreading throughout the body.

And here we're going to take an integration pause and just noticing,

Become very aware of all the physical sensations that are now happening in the body.

And now we're going to do physical exercises for the area of the shoulders and the outer arms and hands.

So if you can sit up,

If you're lying down or standing up,

We're going to stand up upright and concentrate on this area of the body,

The shoulders,

The outer arms and hands.

And the exercise is done by shrugging the shoulders or pumping the shoulders up and down as we hold our breath.

So for this,

We will breathe out fully emptying our stomach and lungs.

Breathe in and hold the breath,

Popping your head slightly forward as you begin to pump the shoulders or shrug the shoulders up and down,

Allowing them to lift up and fall back down.

And you can do this quickly or slowly,

Whatever it feels good.

And when you're ready,

Releasing the breath and just relaxing the shoulders.

We're going to do the exercise a second time.

So breathing out,

Breathing in through the nose,

Holding the breath,

Head slightly forward and begin pumping the shoulders up and down.

And when you're ready,

Breathing out and relax.

And a third time,

The same exercise at your own rhythm,

Starting by breathing out,

Breathing in through the nose and bring your awareness as you're pumping the shoulders and holding the breath to that second,

Sit to the area of the shoulders and the outer arms and hands.

And breathe out when you're ready,

Relaxing the arms and shoulders.

And now just noticing everything that's happening in the body now.

What can you notice?

What can you feel is happening in the body?

And now we're going to do the exercise for a peaceful sleep,

Enhancing sleep.

And for that,

I'd like you to visualize an experience getting ready for bed.

You might be going into your bedroom,

Getting undressed and doing all the preparations in the bathroom,

Everything you need to do.

I'm just going to leave you to do that and experience it with the smells,

The sounds,

The textures and touch,

Everything you can notice using your senses.

And when you're ready,

Just getting into bed.

I'm going to leave you to do that now.

And now that you're in bed,

Quietly just finding yourself falling off to sleep and noticing the transition between awake and being asleep,

Feeling your body relaxing and growing more and more comfortable in bed.

Relaxing the pillows,

The sheets,

The duvet covers,

However it is that you usually go to bed.

And once the body is asleep,

Just start watching yourself sleeping.

If you can manage to feel yourself sleeping and see yourself sleeping at the same time,

Just notice your body going through the night.

Notice sometimes it moves around and sometimes it's very,

Very still.

Notice that you're sleeping very peacefully.

See the hours passing.

Noticing that your body is sleeping very calmly and gently.

And that your cells are being regenerated.

Your body is being strengthened.

Your mind is growing clearer.

Everything is starting to function more easily.

Your body is doing all this while you're sleeping.

And awareness of all the benefits and feel this joy of sleeping.

And gradually,

As you make your way through the sleep cycles,

Become nearer and nearer to the time to wake up.

And you experience yourself just knowing,

Somehow knowing when it's the right time to wake up.

And inside your body now just experiencing the body waking up from this beautiful,

Peaceful,

Regenerative sleep.

And just feel yourself becoming awake before the alarm clock needs to ring.

You're just waking up naturally at the right time.

And then just spending a few moments thinking of either your special place,

Somewhere you feel calm and relaxed.

Or thinking of somebody or something that you love.

Or maybe something you're looking forward to that day.

And just begin to notice these joyful feelings even before you get out of bed.

And also the gratitude for this beautiful night you've spent sleeping.

And thankfulness for the body and mind for producing this beautiful night's sleep.

And then keeping all these feelings of well-being.

Feeling yourself getting up and out of bed.

And going through all the usual morning routine.

As you get ready for the day,

Keeping your thoughts on all the good things that are going to happen today.

And then becoming aware of the body sitting.

And back into an integration position,

The palms on the thighs.

An awareness of all the physical sensations that are now happening in the body.

Everything that is happening.

Noticing the tingling,

The heat,

The cold.

Anything that the body is feeling.

It may feel relaxed.

And remember just by repeating this exercise often,

During the day,

The unconscious is programming itself to produce the best sleep ever.

And the best sleep for your own body.

Sleep that is going to rejuvenate you,

To organize the mind,

To strengthen the body.

It's all just happening automatically when you're sleeping.

And gratitude for the ability to sleep well.

An integration pause,

Coming back into the body.

An awareness of everything that's happening in the body now.

All the physical sensations that you may be feeling.

And then,

Still keeping all these feelings of well-being that you discovered during the exercise.

Begin to move your body and stretch your body,

Starting with your feet and allowing this movement to come up through the body.

Moving and stretching in a way that you feel like moving and stretching.

And when you're ready,

And only when you're ready,

Opening your eyes.

And if you have a journal or a piece of paper handy,

Just writing up your experience,

A few lines.

And this we refer to as a Fennel description in Sophrology.

And thank you for being with us today.

Reviews

Deeply relaxing. I like the preparation for sleep approach for something different.

Nice way to end thx day 🤩