Easy your Christmas stress by taking a few minutes to yourself and do a couple of simple stretches to get the blood flowing and ease some tension.
1. Go in to a Downward Dog pose with your hands and your feet on the floor and your butt up towards the sky, keep your arms and legs as straight as you can and press your head in between your arms and push down with your chest towards the floor.
Hold the pose for a couple seconds. Now push your hips towards the floor and dive with your head up between your arms and towards the ceiling (this is called a Up Dog or a Cobra pose). Hold it for a couple seconds and start alternating a few times between the two poses. Go back and forth between the poses 5-10 times.
2. Just lie on the floor on your back with your arms to the sides like a starfish, lift up your feet and bend your knees to 90 degrees and start twisting your legs with the knees bent from side to side while keeping the arms and shoulders on the floor. Twist from side to side about 10 times at a slow pace.
3. Squat down as deep as you can in a relatively wide stance. Put one hand on the floor with the elbow pressed to the inside of you knee, twist your upper body so that the other hand reaches toward the sky, follow the hand with your eyes. Now twist back and do the same on the other side. Do this twist while maintaining the squat position for about 10 repetitions.