During the holidays, it's easy to sacrifice your quietude for the excitement and stress that accompanies holiday activities. Instead of fighting to find time for a traditional seated, still meditation practice, consider using your physical yoga asana practice as your meditation.

Yoga, like other active forms of meditation such as Tai Chi, Qi Gong and walking meditation strengthens our attention and our self-awareness by focusing the mind on our fluid bodily motions and breathwork. Unlike seated meditation, where the focus is entirely on the breath, making it easy for our mind to wander, yoga, with its flowing motions and poses offers us a few key aspects to focus on: deep, open-throated breathing (ujayi breath,) active poses or postures, and a gazing point or drishti. During our yoga practice, if we get distracted, we can cycle through these gestures and more easily return to a state of calm.

When you are feeling stressed this season, focus your yoga practice on hip opening postures like Baddha Konasana (Bound Angle), Eka Pada Rajakapotasana (One-Legged King Pigeon Pose) and Ardha Chandrasana (Half Moon) as well as forward bends like Uttanasana (Standing Forward Bend) and Prasarita Padottanasana (Wide-Legged Forward Bend.) The hips are a large storage depot for stress and tension; forward bends are naturally calming and detoxifying.