Worry (emotion)

A well accepted theory of anxiety originally posited by Liebert and Morris in 1967 suggests that anxiety consists of two components; worry and emotionality. Emotionality refers to physiological symptoms such as sweating, increased heart beat and raised blood pressure.

Worry refers to negative self-talk that often distracts the mind from focusing on the problem at hand. For example, when students become anxious during a test, they may repeatedly tell themselves they are going to fail, or they can't remember the material or that their teacher will become angry with them. This thinking interferes with focusing on the test as the speech areas of the brain that are needed to complete test questions are being used for worrying.

Worry can also refer to a feeling of concern about someone else's condition. For instance, a mother may say "I'm worried" if her child doesn't show up at home when he was supposed to be there. It can also refer to certain actions or the lack of those kind of actions. "I'm worried because she is not eating any vegetables".