Soft belly breathing can be done for ten minutes twice a day. As Dr. James S. Gordon, MD demonstrates above, breathing slowly and deeply, in through your nose and out through your mouth activates the vagus nerve, you’re relaxing the large muscles in the body, slowing your heart rate, decreasing your blood pressure, and improving your digestion. Keeping levels of stress hormones low has been shown to help optimize immune function.

Dr. James S. Gordon, MD is Founder and Executive Director of the Center for Mind Body Medicine. Dr. Gordon is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Family Medicine at Georgetown Medical School, and chaired the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy under Presidents Clinton and G.W. Bush. Dr. Gordon’s latest book, The Transformation: Discovering Wholeness and Healing After Trauma, is a leading text in the field of mind body medicine.