For those of you who have suffered, or regularly suffer from anxiety and panic attacks, you will be familiar with the sensations you feel after your heart starts to speed up, and beat faster, as well as the hyperventilation and feelings of nausea that anxiety can cause. Now, certainly, to control specific anxiety, you will need to train yourself to visualise peace, and learn techniques to control your reaction to external stimuli that cause anxiety.

However, for an additional buffer against the probability of having an anxiety attack in the first place, or at least, being able to very quickly deal with one, you may not have considered the benefits of an exercise program.

Some of you may think this is funny, for a whole host of reasons including a possible view that you are so unfit, it would not be worth bothering about. Further, others of you may just consider there is no link, whatsoever. However, consider this interesting point.

The symptoms (if I can call it that) of having a good work out, which may be as simple as a brisk walk, jogging, cross country running, or a more standard round in a gym, will be that you experience an increased heart rate, will feel out of breath, experience sweating, and feel very tired, during the work out. Now, thinking back to your last anxiety attack, you will notice a relative degree of similarity to the 'symptoms'. You will almost definitely have had an increased heart rate, and increased your breathing rate.

The above two conditions, and many others, are very similar to the conditions you will experience during an anxiety attack. Whilst you may not have felt like it at the time, I can assure you that the affects of the anxiety attack were not going to kill you. In a similar fashion, the affects of the work out won't do you any harm either. One point I would like to make here, is that if you have really not exercised in a very long time, and are very unfit, you will need to build up over time, rather than attempt the Olympics on your first attempt.

That said, you will find that the feeling you experience after your exercise, apart from possibly being very tired, will also be a great sense of achievement and well being, once you have your breath back. Remember to stick with it, and not give up in the beginning, when naturally, you will be needing to work up to a standard of exercise that is adequate to exercise your heart, and muscles. In all cases of a well exercised body, you will find your ability to not only handle anxiety and panic attacks will improve, but so too, your chances of actually having attacks will reduce as well.

The reason behind this is that a well exercised, and fit body will be able to automatically handle stress better, and not be as susceptible to anxiety. In addition, even when you still do have an episodes, you will find that you will return to a normal state of calm, more quickly than when you are unfit.

Having a fit cardiovascular system will also improve your general health as well, and thus, it is like one situation feeding another, where you will feel happier by default. I suggest you exercise for a minimum period of around a half hour per day, to make it worth while. Also, as an added tip, I suggest you choose an exercise that you enjoy, and watching TV sport does not count!