My explanation may not be accurate but this is how I see sophrology and what I remember from my lessons.
Note that what I explain is not necessarily my opinion or belief.
I am not someone who is into spiritual or "new age" stuff.
Sophrology is a relaxation method.
When you do a session, you focus on a particular issue to remove or lower it.
This is a goal-centered method.
I will explain a bit how you do a session.
The first thing to do when you start sophrology is to learn how to breathe "correctly".
Most adults seem to breathe "from the torso".
This is not good because it constraints your breath, and you do not feel relaxed.
On the other hand, babies breath using "the belly".
You can see their bellies inflate and deflate while they breathe.
Using this technique, you have plenty of space to breathe correctly, and you feel relaxed.
Sophrology divides the body in five zones: the head, the neck, the torso (with the arms and hands), the upper part of your belly, the lower part of your body down to the feet.
Then the belly button represents the whole body.
During the session you will have to focus on each of these six zones one at a time.
In each session, you have multiple exercises to do.
You stand when you do an exercise; then you sit in a relaxed position for a while so your body and your mind absorb what you learned from the exercise.
1. You "clean" yourself by doing dynamic stretching. Slowly you start to close your eyes for the whole session and you focus on breathing correctly.
2. You take consciousness on your body, by focusing on each zone at a time.
3. You relax yourself, each zone at a time.
4. You do the exercise corresponding to what you want to achieve with this session (getting sleep, make your anger disappear, lowering a physical pain...);
5. At last you reactivate yourself physically, and finally you open your eyes.
The main point of the session is to go into a state that is close to slumber before you reactivate your body.
You should feel yourself very relaxed and not wanting to do anything in this state.
Also during the whole session you use positive reinforcement.
You must talk to yourself in a positive manner.
I suppose it helped me because this is a mix of relaxation exercises, auto-hypnosis and positive psychology.
It is not coated into spiritual and religious stuff: I am not trying to ascend into a new layer of existence.
It is not focusing on negative things as it does in stoicism.
To be honest, it was difficult at first for me to do ridiculous exercises and paying for that! :)
But it worked for me and I feel way better now that I am not anxious anymore at the idea of going into bed.
As I wrote, I do not understand why it was so effective so quickly after I struggled for years and years with sleep issues.
And I do not understand why it is still that effective now that I do not do the exercises very often.
