Stress is something that we all feel from time to time and it is very much part of modern life. Not all stress is harmful. But when the pressure becomes too great and you do not know how to deal with it, stress can have a detrimental effect on your health – both mental and physical.

The place where we work is often where we suffer a lot of stress. It is highly important that both employers and their employees are aware of this. It is hardly surprising that the working environment is stressful. Orders have to be fulfilled, deadlines met and staff and workers seek to maximise their earnings. In this situation both bosses and workers will begin to feel stressed out.

While workplace stress may be ideal for giving any business that extra edge in the face of competition, it can also lead to health problems and key workers having to take time off through illness. If the problem of stress is not properly dealt with it can have a detrimental effect on even the most efficient of businesses enjoying the best of industrial relations.

Employers have a heavy responsibility for ensure their workers remain safe and healthy in the workplace, a fact reinforced by Britain’s Health and Safety Executive.

Employers should strive to ensure that work practices and organisation within the business are structured to ensure that their employees suffer as little stress as possible.

Workers and staff should also be ware of the detrimental effect stress can have upon them and they should be prepared to tell management should the pressure in the workplace become too great.

British workers are protected by laws such as the Health and Safety at Work Act and also the 1992 Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulation. Both these acts place an obligation on employers to ensure that nothing in the workplace should be prejudicial to the health of employees, and that includes not subjecting them to stress.

Employees can also ensure their own welfare by informing their employers and management if they feel they are becoming too stressed.

That everyone in the workplace remains both physically and mentally healthy is good business sense. Absenteeism through staff suffering from stress can affect the way a company is able to operate. Any employer forgetting that is not only doing his business a disservice, he risks prosecution for contravention of the various health and safety laws.

The problem with anxiety attacks is they can originate from anywhere, at anytime although experts do know they are generally the result of anxiety, but why this affects the individual the way it does remains a mystery. By each individual learning exactly what causes or triggers their particular anxiety attacks, it will be easier to learn control so that when the situation arises again each time the anxiety attack will happen less.

Once you learn some of these triggers you may never have an anxiety attack again, no cause will be great enough to push you over the tipping point and into an uncontrollable anxiety attack. No-one should feel that feeling of anxiety so they must know from the outset that the goal is to eliminate the anxiety completely.

Anxiety attacks are often caused by emotions such as guilt, depression, self-consciousness, fear, anger and general frustration. As part of a condition called general anxiety disorder, they all originate in the same area of the brain and the symptoms are pretty much the same with anyone who suffers with it.

Linked to depression, anxiety attacks can be work related especially if the position has a great deal of pressure. Stress in small quantities can actually be good for us but if your workplace is creating large amounts of stress then it is not unusual for an panic attack to be a regular occurrence.

The attack results in a person feeling extreme fear and the breathing becomes very rapid with a fast pulse in a condition called hyperventilation where it is not uncommon for thoughts of their own mortality to be overpowering. This is the reason for the classic breathing into a bag as it controls breathing by inhaling more carbon dioxide and not so much oxygen and this is normally enough to stop the attack but controlling breathing is the key.

For example when most people have an attack, they worry uncontrollably so you must learn that if an attack should happen then it is important to go through your breathing exercises. This involves inhaling for two seconds while pushing the stomach out and exhaling for another two seconds; this is repeated for as long as possible.

Concentrating on just breathing makes the mind focus on just that one thing and thought of not being in control will disappear. e. breathing and not the underlying reason but it will force the person to calm themselves down. Although this should work, some cases are to deeply rooted, then in those instances an appointment with a doctor should be arranged, sooner rather than later.