Feeling stressed during the Holiday Season?

All the family gatherings, activities and gift buying has a tendency to leave us with a little extra stress. Try keeping some of it at bay with meditation. Meditation will help you relax while letting your mind float away from your every day life if only for a minute. Here's a quick lesson on how to meditate:

Sit up straight with your hands folded gently in your lap, or lay down on a flat surface. Just relax. Don't try to stop the thoughts from coming into your head, acknowledge them and then let them drift away. Breathe in deeply using your stomach instead of breathing through your chest, keep one hand on your chest and one on your belly to check your breathing. Meditation is all about having a blank mind, so don't focus on anything except your breath. Within a week your thoughts will begin to slow down. Start slowly, do 5 minutes a few times a week and build yourself up. At first your body will try to fight you and you'll probably get anxious and bored but just stick with it and the benefits you'll read are endless.