Anxiety can be described as a psychological and physiological state with somatic, emotional, cognative and behavioral components. These components come together to create a very uncomfortable feeling that typically makes you feel uneasy, fearful or worried.
Anxiety is basically a mood condition that happens without an identifiable catalyst stimulus. It can be differentiated from fear, which happens in the presence of a threat. Fear is common to the specific behaviors of escaping and avoidance. Anxiety is the product of threats that are perceived to be unavoidable, or uncontrollable.
A different view is that anxiety is "a future-oriented mood state in where one can be ready or prepared to try to cope with future negative events" telling us that it is a difference between future vs. present dangers that seperates fear and anxiety.
You can consider anxiety to be a regular reaction to stress. It may help a person deal with a cumbersome situation, for example at work or at school, by prompting one to cope with it. When anxiety becomes far too great, it may fall under the classification of an anxiety disorder.
