When considering what makes a person anxious, it’s important to first understand the difference between fear and anxiety.

Fear is usually an emotional response to a real or perceived danger. When we experience fear, we often experience a fight-or-flight response — a desire to either confront the threat or flee from it until it is removed.

By contrast, anxiety involves worry in anticipation of a potential threat or a possible future conflict.

Fear generally dissipates after the perceived threat is eliminated, but anxiety can linger and become chronic and cause multiple health problems.

According to the American Psychological Association, anxiety is characterized by tension, worries, and physical changes in the body. Although we generally think of anxiety as a mental or emotional state, it also involves physical responses. When people get anxious, they often perspire and can experience a rapid heart rate, elevated blood pressure, lightheadedness, upset stomach, or other physical reactions.

Worse yet, awareness of such physiological reactions can escalate emotional anxiety.

Different forms of anxiety have a variety of causes and contributing factors. For instance, genetics can predispose you to an anxiety response. If one or both of your parents were high-strung and tense, you will likely inherit a predisposition for anxiety symptoms.

But on average, heredity only accounts for about a third of what determines an individual’s level of anxiety. In addition to passing down their DNA, parents teach us behavioral responses to stressful situations. If a parent models resilience and healthy reactions to stress, that parent’s children learn a healthy behavioral response that may persist throughout life.

Expressed feeling states have an immediate impact on those near us. Thus, if you grew up in a household where anxiety was pervasive, you may tend to experience heightened anxiety throughout your life.

Along with inherent sources of anxiety such as genetic predisposition and underlying personality traits, environmental and situational factors contribute to the condition. Common external sources of anxiety include work or school stress, interpersonal conflicts, financial pressures, medical illnesses, medication side effects, emotional trauma, death of loved ones, and use of recreational drugs.