One moment to harmonise your body & mind
Body & Mind Therapy, Mindful walking, Yoga practise
with Alexandre Dufresne
SOPHROLOGY
Sophrology is a body & mind holistic therapy (recognized by health insurances) at the crossroads between Western relaxation techniques and Eastern meditation.
MINDFUL WALKING
Mindful walking is a simple, profound and pleasurable practice. This will allow to deepen your connection with your body in movement and nature while experimenting the benefits of mindfulness.
YOGA
Yoga cultivate awareness, mental wellbeing as well as a good physical health. By moving, stretching, massaging muscles, joints and internal organs. Yoga improves your posture, tonicity, strength, coordination and make your joints healthier.
Meet Alexandre Dufresne
Licensed Therapist in Sophrology, Biologist, Yoga teacher
Alexandre has developed a holistic approach of the most common issues affecting our wellbeing: stress management, sleep, nutrition.
This is through his personal experience and practice that Alexandre realised how the mind and the body were interrelated. To notice the influence of the mental state on the breath, and the impact of this same breath on learning capacities, ability – to focus, manage or to perform – was an important first self-discovery for Alexandre.
If science already attested important links between physical health and mental health, the last two decades have shown growing recognition of the interconnections of the mind and body. The progresses in neuroscience have revealed the brain plasticity, i.e. your brain’s ability to create new connections depending on your life experiences. In genetics while 20 years ago, we believed that genes were the single determinants of most of our functions, today we know that we are not only influenced by our genes, but that we can also influence our genes (the expression of the genes – this is what we call epigenetic). Some other discoveries such as the gut-brain connection is also seriously questioning the pertinence of the dualist concept of mind and body.
In practice it is still difficult for physicians to address the complexity of health issues besides the somatic aspects. Complementary methods are often necessary to develop people’s understanding on the way they can influence their health and well being. If understanding is a first step, practice is the most important step. Alexandre chose to focus on practices which help broaden your consciousness and deepen your relation between mind and body. He believes these methods are the most needed to complement our traditional health management system. These methods are also an effective way to overcome many difficulties in life and to choose the existence you wanna live.
Teaching, coaching and leading are constants in Alexandre Dufresne’s professional career. These competences are particularly important to motivate, guide and help people who comes to him.
One-to-one session
Geneva and Verbier (CH-Switzerland)
One-to-one session are the most advisable solution to tackle your health, to resolve personal issues or to prepare yourself for an important event. Unless you applied specifically for a yoga course or mindful walking, Sophrology will help you from the first session to connect with yourself and set up clear objectives for the therapy.
Health at work / at school
Geneva, Vaud, Valais (CH) and Copenhague (DK)
Simple exercises and technics will be taught to relax, reenergise and focus. These technics can be adapted and learned by different age groups and practise without supervision after some time. On the top of the technics, we also discuss individual solutions to fit these exercises in the daily work schedule.
Retreats & seasonal activities
Verbier (CH)
In the beautiful region of Verbier, you can find during the peak season of summer some regular yoga classes and mindful walk to attend (See regular activities Summer 2019 – COMING SOON). To deepen the understanding of mindful walks and yoga some retreats are also organise. (See calendar Summer 2019 – COMING SOON).
Sophrology
Sophrology is a holistic, body and mind therapy at the crossroads between Western relaxation techniques and Eastern meditation.
Developed in the 1960’s by Professor Caycedo Neuropsychiatrist at the University of Barcelona. Caycedo developed a new approach based on hypnosis, relaxation techniques and existential-phenomenological psychology with inputs from yoga, Tibetan buddhist meditation and Japanese zen.
Sophrology is particularly useful in stress management, anxiety control, pain management, enhanced sleep patterns and to overcome phobia, or to deal with learning difficulties and learning disabilities.
Sophrology is also used as a tool to prepare an important event such as a sport competition, exams or public speaking.
In Switzerland Sophrology is recognised as complementary medicine and supported financially by complementary health insurances.
How does it work?
The first step is usually to be aware of your body and physical sensations. You will learn to observe your breath and your physical symptoms/somatisation of your mental state. With some simple tools, you will work on relaxing the distress or discomfort you could feel physically. You will learn to relax. Your physical relaxation will in turn, impact your mental state. In the long term, you will manage to reprogram your brain, and will start reacting differently by what used to trigger stress or anxiety.
To prepare yourself for future challenges, we use visualisation techniques and positive thinking. Once you manage to feel positively about a future event, we will transfer the positive feeling at the physical level.You will be filled with a positive experience which should allow you to be at your best for the important event ahead of you.
In the long term Sophrology is about changing some of our neural pathways. Our brain is very plastic in the sense it keeps building new neural pathways along with the experiences we live. While working at the physical and emotional level, you will build new pathways in your brain to transform your existence the way you have mindfully chosen.
What to expect?
In Sophrology after a couple of sessions you will become autonomous in practising some simple exercises which will help you daily and in different situations. Around 8/10 sessions should allow you to resolve a specific issue you have come with.
1 hour session (one-to-one):140 CHF
Mindful walking
Mindful walking also known as walking meditation, is an active practice that requires you to be consciously aware. It’s a simple, profound and pleasurable form of meditation.
Walking is one of the most common activity of the human species, it should therefore be a good opportunity to practice regularly. As a first practice, we tend to practice in a beautiful environment.
We learn to engage all of our senses in the experience of walking. We aim to be mindful of our feet touching the ground, of the earth beneath our feet, of our nose and the air flowing in and out, of the natural movements of breathing, of the breeze touching our skin, of the sounds, the smells, the sights…
This form of meditation or mindfulness practice will allow newcomers to enjoy the benefits of meditation and mindfulness as well as for regular practitioners to deepen their connection with their body in movement and nature.
Why should you try mindful walking ?
Making the effort to bring conscious awareness to your senses will not only bring you into the present moment and deepen your connection to your surroundings, it will also bring your mind and body back into a state of balance.
When after physical activity, you might feel more relax, here you will feel not only relaxed but also reenergised with a clear head.
I recommend to start mindful walking in a natural environment to combine the power of nature (see reference-Article COMING SOON) with the power of meditation and physical activity. Then you can easily reactivate the full benefits of this practise in a more urban environment on your way to work or while going to an important meeting.
Once you will feel the benefits of this practice you might be more inclined to favour walking over other form of transportation with all its health benefits.
Mindful walks – What to expect?
During a couple of hours or 2 days, you will learn to engage your senses, synchronising stepping with your breathing you will experience different rhythms such as the one known as afghan walk. You will be guided through different vision exercices, develop all our senses and discover different oriental and western techniques engaging the body and the mind.
Private guided walk (min. 2 hours) : 220 CHF (+110 CHF/hour)
Group Half-day (3.5 hours): 140 CHF / pers
Group One Day Course: 210 CHF / pers
Group two-day Course: 390 CHF / pers
Yoga
Yoga improves your posture, tonicity, strength and make your joints healthier. Yoga trains you also to release your mind when you experience discomfort. Teach you to focus and commit without unnecessary tensions. So more than just a healthy physical practice, yoga is also a training for the mind.
With Alexandre you will practice pranayama (breathing exercises) and asana (postures) while keeping your awareness on your breathing and movements. You will also observe your thoughts while holding postures (hatha yoga). In yoga « the mind and body are not separate entities, although there is tendency to think and act as though they are. The gross from of the mind is the body and the subtle form of the body is the mind. The practice of yoga harmonises the two. Both the body and the mind harbour tensions and knots. Every mental knot has a corresponding physical, muscular knot and vice versa. The aim of asana is to release these knots. Asanas release mental tensions by dealing with them on the physical level acting somato-psychically, through the body to the mind » (Swami Satyananda Saraswati, Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha). One example would be the effect of emotional tensions on the diaphragm and breathing, when people are emotionally distress they have no more energy, one reason being their breathing functions are debilitated. Yoga through the practice of asanas, pranayama and yoga nidra will tackle these knots at the mental and physical level.
If you think this is time to take care of your body, you should priviledge yoga. You will quickly understand that your body is an indissociable part of your beeing. It will not only be about taking care of your appearance, but it will about reconnecting with your body which will be hard to give up once you understand how your mind and body are indissociable.
For sporty people, yoga is a good complement to sport. On the top of maintaining your flexibility and your joints in good health, yoga will improve the consciousness of your posture, muscles and joints. It will therefore improve your coordination. Yoga asanas if practiced properly should leave you also reenergised. It will also give you the time to observe your mind when performing movements and postures.
1 session (Group) approx. 1.5 hour: 35 CHF
10 sessions (Group): 250 CHF
Private course: 120 CHF (for 1.5 hour)
CONTACT
Dont’ hesitate to ask additional questions to book a private sessions. For group sessions, you can find the calendar here (coming soon).