Ditch Holiday Stress with Yoga

The holiday season brings added stress into our lives -- between shopping for gifts, preparing food and getting your house ready for relative visits. This year, ditch the Holiday stress with easy yoga poses that you can do anywhere. Whether your waiting on line at a store, or cooking food in your kitchen, these easy poses can bring instant calm to your life and help relieve built up tension in your muscles. Paula Lynch of Yoga Works was here to show us how.

• Focus Exhalation Breathing Exercise - Focus on your exhalation, making your exhale longer than your inhale. This begins to calm the nervous system. Breathe naturally and concentrate on elongating your exhale. This can be done anywhere. Benefits: Instantly calms nerves, relaxes your body and muscles (Standing pose)

• Interlocking Shoulder Stretch - Interlace hands behind back, straighten arms and stretch arms away from torso. Benefits: Stretches shoulders, opens chest, enables deeper breathing (Standing Pose)

• Pacify the Mind/Stretch the Shoulders - Sit at edge of chair in front of desk; keep back as straight as possible, fold forward placing elbows on desk. Bend elbows and press palms together, rest forehead on desk. Benefits: Stretches shoulders, upper back, spine; opens chest; head resting helps calm the brain (Seated Pose - need two chairs)

• Seated Chest Opener - Sit well back into chair, all the way on the seat; wrap arms around back of chair, as though you want to touch your elbows together behind the chair back. Hands come forward and fingers spread out (think "robot arms", or those old Barbie dolls with the L-shaped arms!!) Benefits: Stretches the chest and shoulders and spine, and keeps you alert and awake. (Seated Pose)

• Simple Spinal Twist - Lie on back, hug knees into chest, and bring knees to left side of torso into a twist, open arms to T-shape. Benefits: Helps release low backache, keeps spine mobile, enables ease in breathing (Laying down pose)

This holiday, give the gift of yoga by bringing health and well being to the one you love. A two-week unlimited pass to YogaWorks is just $30 - the perfect stocking stuffer! Visit yogaworks.com for locations