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Up to 13.5million experience raised blood pressure when they have to make basic calculations such as sale discounts or cooking times.

Some 10 million become flustered when called on to use their English skills, for example writing a memo to the boss or reading instructions.

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The scale of difficulties with the three Rs emerged in a survey by the internet education service learndirect.

It found that the average adult faces maths challenges 14 times a day, giving 306,000 in a lifetime.

But a Manchester University expert who used heart and blood pressure monitors to check the physical responses of participants found widespread anxiety over simple tasks.

Professor Geoff Beattie found that adults who struggled with maths and English registered significantly more negative moods and raised blood pressure.

The survey found almost eight million Britons would ask someone else to carry out a task involving maths or English rather than tackle it themselves.

Learndirect released the findings as it launched a quiz challenge which will be touring shopping centres, with backing from TV presenters Johnny Ball and Eamonn Holmes.

Sally Coady, of learndirect, said: 'We don't realise just how many times we apply maths and English to everyday situations.

'The quiz is an opportunity to think about how you can brush up on your maths and English if you need to.'

Johnny Ball said: 'Maths was my favourite subject at school and I was lucky enough to make a career out of it.

'But if you find you struggle a bit, you can really have fun learning how to do it better or just brushing up on your skills.

'That's always been my approach to things that can at first seem daunting, boring or irrelevant.'

The scale of the problem is the legacy of decades of poor schooling, particularly when 'trendy teaching' was prevalent in the Seventies and Eighties.

Labour peer Lord Leitch warned last year that Britain faces economic disaster because of low levels of basic skills in the workforce.