I immediately gave up any thought of completing the approach, applied full power & levelled the wings.
PLEASE NOTE - This is NOT the correct recovery without lowering the nose, or at least keeping it down, there are aircraft that if you apply this recovery will actually pitch up and stall if you do not take corrective action! ( thus disproving Vilters claim that aircraft do not change speed with power!)
As far as how to prevent this happening goes I would recommend a spin awareness course, you
should really have covered spiral dive recovery in the PPL course as part of recovery from unusual attitudes but if not then that should also get covered in a spinning course, going on to do a full aeros course is not necessary, though personally I would recommend it.