When it comes to anxiety, the public understands mostly feelings such as nervousness, panic and restlessness, but most people do not have a very deep understanding of what anxiety is and whether it is a disease. In fact, to be more precise, anxiety should be an emotion that puts us in a certain state of tension. Moderate anxiety can give people a sense of urgency and is protective, which is conducive to individual progress and avoiding threats, so moderate anxiety is adaptive; however, there are two sides to everything, and anxiety in excess will instead lead to a decrease in efficiency and prevent us from working, living and learning normally, and this anxiety is maladaptive. What kind of anxiety is normal? What kind of anxiety is excessive and pathological? Normal anxiety should have the following characteristics: firstly, normal anxiety should have a realistic basis, such as the anxiety before students’ exams and the anxiety before employees’ promotions. Therefore, normal anxiety has a clear direction, and when the realistic pressure disappears, the level of anxiety will drop rapidly; secondly, normal anxiety is adaptive, and its purpose is to launch our mental ability to face the pressure positively, and it makes us more focused and conducive to cope with the real threats we face. Pathological anxiety is the opposite of normal, and it is characterized by the following: first, there is no realistic basis or some realistic stressful event, but it is obvious that our negative evaluation of that stressful event is clearly exaggerated; anxiety has no clear direction, and what is often experienced at this time is an inexplicable feeling of anxiety, worry, or an inexplicable sense of urgency, the cause of which is difficult to articulate; second, because pathological anxiety is maladaptive, it causes us to not be able to focus on doing things calmly, but instead leads to a decrease in the efficiency of doing things. In addition, pathological anxiety is often accompanied by some somatic anxiety reactions, such as feeling panic, chest tightness, abdominal distension, back pain, etc., but no lesions can be detected by relevant medical examinations. How to deal with anxiety when it occurs? First of all, you should understand anxiety correctly, don’t overly fear it, accept and allow yourself to have anxiety, don’t try to control it, sometimes divert your attention and ignore it can achieve unexpected effects, but about rush to control it, then the more obvious its effect on you. Secondly, when feeling that after adjustment, you still can’t cope, you can seek the help of a psychiatrist, after all, they have more experience in dealing with these problems than we do.