If the holiday season has you stressed or you’re not feeling very festive, there is good news! By adding a little yoga practice and mindfulness to your day, you will be able to get through this holiday season better than ever!
Below are a few tips I have put together to help get you through this holiday season.
 
Practice Mindfulness
Being mindful means being present, even if it’s the last thing you feel like doing! The purpose is to allow us to feel our emotions and think thoughts, but not to become overwhelmed with them! Instead accept that they are part of the moment and that they will pass. There’s no right or wrong with mindfulness, only observance.
 
Stay Present
Stress often comes from overthinking about the past or future, rather than remaining in the present. This can lead to anxiety and stress over what’s to come or what may have happened in the past. The holiday season often means one thing after another, but if you can focus on each thing as it occurs that can ease the tension. 
 
Let Go of Expectations
Often, we have ideas about how we want things to be during the holiday season. Let go of expectations during the holiday season and simply let things happen. Not everything is going to turn out perfectly, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it for the way it is. 
 
Be Compassionate for Yourself and Others
This may seem easy, however during the holiday season we often forget to practice kindness to ourselves and others. Spending quiet time with yourself when needed can relieve the pressure by being mindful in the moment. Try to avoid rehashing any past tensions and instead focus on the good moments. Reflect on the good things whether they’re related specifically to the holiday season or just a nice moment in your day.
 
Practice yoga
The holiday season isn’t the time to set aside your yoga practice or let it slide. If anything, you should make more time to practice yoga during the holidays, to help you relieve any stress or tension you might have. There’s always time for a round of Simple Sun Salutations  or Yin yoga to help you destress at the end of the day. Practicing yoga in short bursts several times a week when you wake up or prior to bed can work wonders and help you to relax.
 
Yoga and mindfulness can help to alleviate tension that builds during the holiday season. Even if you enjoy this time of year and you’re having fun, things can get a little overwhelming and put stress on your body. Don’t forget the benefits of practicing yoga and mindfulness can have.

Yoga is an ancient science that aims to create a balance between the body, mind and spirit, thereby curing physical mental and spiritual disorders that are caused by this imbalance. In common language, yoga means union; it’s a union of the individual consciousness with the super-consciousness. To be exact, yoga aims at reminding us of this union that already exists and has merely been forgotten. To put it simply, yoga is experiencing and knowing what already exists, not inventing anything new.

At the physical level, yoga can create a balance and harmony among the various organs and systems of the body, allowing the healing powers inherent in the body to work and cure physical ailments. At the mental level, yoga is the harmony between mind, heart and hands or between thought, speech and action. At the spiritual level, yoga aims to destroy the individual ego that stands between the individual and the cosmos, thus attaining the ultimate truth.

Yoga is essentially a set of systematically devised physical exercises that place emphasis on balance and posture. Combined with breathing exercises they have the capacity to cure almost any ailment of the body and mind. The underlying concept of yoga is to create the situation in which the human body can function at optimum capacity.

Yoga asanas or poses are simple and effective body movements that massage the muscles lubricate the joints and tone the whole body. Yoga poses help to keep the body healthy and the mind peaceful. Asanas exercise the nerves, glands, ligaments, and muscles. These exercises increase flexibility and balance in the body. Yoga poses refer to the sequence of exercises which is extremely important to get the best results. They are scientifically graded to move from the simple to the complex, to cure the body first and then move on to mental and spiritual goals.

Although you can start a yoga practice under the guidance of a  yoga teacher, you can also learn to practice at home with the help of yoga videos online. Once you have learned the basic poses you can make yoga a part of your daily routine. It’s best to have a regular time and place for practicing yoga so that you can reap the  benefits from it. After some time you will see a change in yourself. Your body will become strong, more flexible and healthy; you will have a positive attitude and your worldview on life will become beautiful; thus creating unification between mind, body, and spirit.

Most human problems and every stumbling block along the path to spiritual fulfillment are the result of one thing: clinging to attachments. For example, rather than seeing anger as a simple temporary feeling that will pass, we cling to it and don’t let go. It can quickly consume our entire lives, blocking the way to any type of peace or enlightenment. We consider desire to be an internal desire that must be acted upon, rather than seeing it as a simple feeling or thought that will pass if we only let it go. All of our thoughts and reactions to feelings become serious burdens, and we wrap ourselves totally up in those things, in essence making them part of ourselves. When we can't let go of these attachments, we become them.

In order to achieve spiritual freedom, you muѕt let go of everything that you consider to be part of yourself, especially the negative things. One of the greatest benefits of non-clinging is that even early in your path, you will recognize partial results and accomplishments. Learning not to internally identify with just a few emotions or thoughts will allow you to experience a little bit of lightness of foot, more joy and freedom walking through your life. Non-clinging will soon become its own reward, when you realize the benefits it affords.

However, be careful not to confuse non-attachment with detachment. Non-attachment is the opposite of detachment, because you muѕt consciously focus on a thought or emotion in order to release the attachment you have to it. Through non-attachment you can be free to love others, to be completely engaged in your life, your friends, your family, and your career. Through non-attachment you can detach yourself from the barriers in place that separate you from others and from the things that will complete you and fulfill you. By comparison, detachment serves to strengthen the cold, unfeeling barriers that separate you from your life.

​If you feel hurt or slighted in some way, an entire army of emotions and negative thoughts may arise and persist for hours or even days. If you stop and observe your reactions to those thoughts, you will quickly see how you cling to them and how they affect your life. Through that observation you will be able to release the hold your reactions have on you by releasing your grip on them, and then they will go away all on their own. You will breathe easier, and you will feel free to respond or not respond do the situation that led to the thoughts in the first place. Your energies will be saved for more productive uses, such as seeking joy and nurturing mindfulness.

According to the Buddha, non-clinging is very valuable to all stages of achieving spiritual depth - the beginning, the middle, and the end of the path. The single price you have to pay to be fully unconditioned, open to the presence of God, is to give up all the things we are clinging to. We may actually catch a glimpse, if even for a moment, of the Divine power that can complete uѕ - if we are able to relinquish our attachments to things that do not matter.
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"In the process of letting go, you will lose many things from the past, but you will find yourself." ~Deepak Chopra

Everything in life eventually ends. Our bodies, and the bodies of people we love, grow older, grow ill, slowly age, and eventually die. All of our material possessions are ultimately consumed by time. By the same token, passing emotions and situations that cause them will be entirely forgotten eventually. However, equanimity opens up our minds to timelessness, where there iѕ no death. Equanimity is created by our contact with the part of our soul that exists outside the time constraint. The peace that exists outside the world of time helps uѕ to embrace the world without the constraints of time.

Life itself can help you learn to release attachments and stop clinging. For example, when anger takes control of your mind, take the time to identify it, consider why you are angry, become aware of how much control it has over you, and simply let it go. Doing so can be extremely hard, and especially so when the anger iѕ great, but firmly taking control and releasing your hold on the emotion iѕ necessary if your goal is to free yourself and approach the Divine. Letting go of clinging to anger, fear, and greed iѕ an essential part of respecting yourself. Non-clinging is a spiritual practice that allows you to relax the ties that drag you down, relax your attitude, and release your grip on the bottom in order to reach for the top.

More and more often today we hear the expression "being mindful" being used in general conversation. For those of us that have meditation and/or yoga practices this term is very much a part of our vocabulary but are we really comfortable with what it means for us in our day to day living. Mindfulness means being in the "moment", a conscious awareness of what is in our minds before we say or do anything. Not only being aware but of then examining those thoughts and deciding if they are negative in any way to ourselves or others.
 
 "Before you speak, think - Is it necessary? Is it true? Is it kind? Will it hurt anyone? Will it improve on the silence". - Sri Sathya Sai Baba
 
Hurting ourselves or others through our words, actions or inaction's, brings negative energy into the lives of all affected. Even if what we are saying is true we have to ask ourselves what is the probable outcome of telling this truth. By withholding a truth are we saving someone from an unnecessary hurt or will their life be better in the long run? However, we also have to ask ourselves if we have enough real information on which to base our decision and if the answer is "no" or we are in doubt then we should withhold our comment. This is being mindful.
 
Even if someone has done something you consider careless - let it go. Recognize that everyone makes mistakes. We have no way of knowing what’s going on in a person's life that may have contributed to the perceived infraction. Take a deep breath and let go of any physical tension that has started to take hold of your body. Mindfulness exercises come from thousands of years of traditions and Eastern practices of meditation. By practicing mindfulness exercises, we can learn to focus our awareness/consciousness on the present moment without judging the thoughts that come in our mind. It's about letting the present become a reality in total consciousness and total awareness.
 
In yoga practice we learn to distinguish between when our bodies and our minds are in a state of tension/anxiety and when they are relaxed and we feel in control. Being mindful of what is happening to us and how we feel, allows us to lead a more organized and fulfilling life as we can direct our energies, both physical and mental towards being positive and productive.