When your emotions run high, breathing speeds up, too. Slowing your breathing down relaxes tense muscles, bringing shoulders down from ears, calms roiling emotions, and helps disarm the hormonal cascade within the body that feeds anxiety.

Just five minutes of deep breathing can calm you effectively.

A few quick ways to take holiday stress down, relax and invoke your calmer self:

• Breathe deeply.
• Exercise.
• Diffuse charged conversations.