Cloudwatcher,
I too was a bit fearful of this exercise before doing it. This is what worked for me.
During the lesson, I tried to keep as calm as possible. Then I let my instructor go thru one or two stalls first. Whilst he was performing them, I forgot the panic and got on with the thinking and learning aspect ie. why is this happening, what do I do to correct this situation.
When it was my first go, guess what happenend? ...the thinking and logic went straight out the window and I over-reacted in pushing the control column forward. Second go, I nailed it. From there on in...we did stalls for 1.4 hours and I just felt alot better and confident about recovery from them.
Morale of this tale -it won't be as bad as you think it is. Just keep a clear head and be confident.
Good luck mate!