James S. Gordon, MD, a Harvard-educated psychiatrist, founded the Center for Mind-Body Medicine in 1991 to bring self-awareness, self-care, and group support into healthcare, education, and training. He leads an international faculty that has trained more than 6,000 professionals working with trauma, anxiety, depression, and serious illness.

Dr. Gordon's work has taken him into war-torn regions and disaster-affected communities, including a collaboration with the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation that combined mind-body medicine with Lakota healing to reduce youth suicide. His team currently supports Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and recovery efforts in South Sudan; Archbishop Desmond Tutu has praised his work in population-wide trauma healing.

Dr. Gordon describes decades of work bringing mind-body techniques to trauma survivors in war zones, and the breathing technique his team teaches to activate the vagus nerve and calm a traumatized nervous system.

"The first technique we teach when we're training people who've been traumatized is slow, deep breathing — the easiest way to activate the vagus nerve. After a few minutes, 80 to 90% of people experience the benefits: heart rate goes down, blood pressure goes down, muscle tension goes down, fear and anger decrease, and our capacity to think clearly, be self-aware, and be more compassionate is enhanced."