The glossary
The breath and sophrology glossary
The words you see everywhere, explained simply and without jargon. From breathing to the nervous system, from sophrology to deep rest: the vocabulary for understanding what your body already does.
Breath
- Cardiac coherence
- Slow, even breathing, often five seconds in and five out, that puts the heart and the breath on the same rhythm. The body tips gently toward its rest mode.
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- 4-7-8 breathing
- Breathe in through the nose for four, hold for seven, breathe out through the mouth for eight. The long exhale helps the body let go, useful at night or when you wake at 3am.
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- Physiological sigh
- Two inhales through the nose, a short one on top of the first, then one long exhale. A natural reset the body uses to bring tension down in a few cycles.
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- Diaphragmatic breathing
- Also called belly breathing: the belly rises on the inhale rather than the shoulders. It engages the diaphragm and settles a slower, fuller breath.
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- Breathwork
- The family of techniques that use conscious breathing to shift the state of body and mind. A simple tool, free and always available.
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The nervous system
- Parasympathetic nervous system
- The branch of the autonomic nervous system that runs rest and digestion. When it takes over, the heart rate slows and the muscles let go.
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- Vagus nerve
- The main nerve of the rest-and-digest mode. Long exhales, humming, and cold on the face all help engage it.
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- Cortisol
- A hormone the body releases in response to stress. It is not an enemy to eliminate: what matters is a steady rhythm between tension and rest.
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- Interoception
- The perception of the inside of the body: heartbeat, breath, hunger, the tension in a muscle. It gets called the sixth sense, and it can be trained.
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Regulating and grounding
- Grounding (5-4-3-2-1 method)
- An exercise that brings attention back to the present through the senses: name five things you see, four you hear, three you touch, two you smell, one you taste.
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- Glimmers
- The opposite of a trigger: a micro-moment of safety or warmth that sends the nervous system a small signal of calm.
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- Mental load
- The invisible weight of everything to think about, organize, and anticipate. It often ends up lodged in the body, as tension and tiredness.
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- High sensitivity
- A way of picking up the world more strongly: sounds, lights, emotions, atmospheres. A trait, not a flaw, that simply asks for more quiet pauses.
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- Fawn response
- A protective reaction of appeasing the other person and making yourself small to defuse tension, often at the cost of your own needs.
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Sophrology
- Sophrology
- A method created in 1960 by Alfonso Caycedo that combines breathing, muscle relaxation, and visualization. It is often practiced toward a specific goal, led by voice.
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- Sophronization
- The relaxed state between waking and sleep in which a sophrology session takes place, reached through breathing and the gradual release of the body.
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- Terpnos logos
- The calm, slow, even voice that guides a session. It does not put you to sleep or suggest: it accompanies, leaving you active and free in what you experience.
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- Vivance
- A term coined by Caycedo for the lived experience of the present moment, what body and mind actually feel during practice.
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- Dynamic relaxation
- The core of sophrology: gentle exercises blending light movement, breath, and attention to sensation, standing or seated, rather than still relaxation.
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- Futurization
- Pre-living a future moment in the imagination, positively and calmly, to meet an upcoming event more serenely: an exam, an appointment, a birth.
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- Progressive sophro-acceptance (SAP)
- A futurization technique that gradually tames a dreaded event by living it in advance, calmly, until it weighs less.
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- Positive action principle
- The idea that a positive action toward one part of yourself, the body, the mind, or the emotions, spreads across the whole of consciousness.
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- Positive visualization
- Picturing a place, a memory, or a resourcing moment in images, to settle a state of calm and inner safety.
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Relaxation methods
- Progressive muscle relaxation
- The Jacobson method, developed in 1938: tense a muscle group for a few seconds, then release it all at once, working up through the body. The contrast teaches the body the difference between held and released.
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- Autogenic training
- The Schultz method, born in the 1930s: short phrases centered on heaviness and then warmth, repeated silently. It describes a sensation instead of commanding relaxation.
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Rest
- NSDR (non-sleep deep rest)
- A guided stretch of rest where you stay awake but the body lets go almost as it does in sleep. Ten to twenty minutes is typical.
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- Yoga nidra
- A guided relaxation with ancient roots that NSDR draws from: attention travels through the body, part by part, while the breath slows.
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From the words to the practice
Soa builds a personalized sophrology program for you, led by voice. You put the words of this glossary into your body, session after session.