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Phyllis Korkki is an assignment editor for Sunday Business and the author of “The Big Thing: How to Complete Your Creative Project Even if You’re a Lazy, Self-Doubting Procrastinator Like Me.” She recently wrote about a problem that seems pervasive in the U.S. workplace: Stress.

According to the American Institute of Stress: “Numerous studies show that job stress is far and away the major source of stress for American adults and that it has escalated progressively over the past few decades. Increased levels of job stress as assessed by the perception of having little control but lots of demands have been demonstrated to be associated with increased rates of heart attack, hypertension and other disorders. In New York, Los Angels and other municipalities, the relationship between job stress and heart attacks is so well acknowledged, that any police officer who suffers a coronary event on or off the job is assumed to have a work related injury and is compensated accordingly (including heart attack sustained while fishing on vacation or gambling in Las Vegas).”

When Korkki “experienced a bout of anxiety at work,” she did some research. Her findings are useful as more employers and employees are realizing that mental health is a key component of workplace wellness.

One area for focus: Breathing. She visited “Belisa Vranich, a clinical psychologist who teaches — or rather reteaches — people how to breathe.”

Writes Korkki: “When we are under stress at work, we tend to brace and compress ourselves, and our field of vision becomes narrow, Dr. Vranich said in a recent interview. This causes us to breathe more quickly and shallowly. The brain needs oxygen to function, of course, and breathing this way reduces the supply, causing muddled thinking. Also, the digestive system doesn’t receive the movement and massage it needs from the diaphragm, and that can lead to problems like bloating and acid reflux, she said.”

Another area: Posture. She took lessons on it. “When I told people I was working on my posture, they tended to feel ashamed of their slouchiness and lifted their chins, pulled their shoulder blades together and stiffened their necks and shoulders. But that is exactly what you don’t want to do, said my posture teacher, Lindsay Newitter, who runs a company in New York called the Posture Police. Rather, you want to gently release the tension that you may not even be aware is compressing your body.”

A final idea: Don't sit too much. She spoke with Alan Hedge, an ergonomics professor at Cornell University. Writes Korkki: “We’ve all heard that sitting for long periods is bad for you, but standing for a long time isn’t good either, Professor Hedge said. You need to mix it up. He has done research showing that workers should sit for roughly 20 minutes, stand for about eight minutes and move around for two minutes.”