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Martin Paulus, professor of psychiatry at the University of California at San Diego, studies anxiety's effects on decision-making. "Under certain circumstances anxious people are more sensitive in detecting potentially bad outcomes associated with choices. They do avoid harm, so, as a consequence, it may be useful to be anxious," he says.

Paulus and his team have found that anxious people tend to take a "bottom-up" approach to life—their emotional reactions to events are stronger, while their ability to reason and intellectually interpret events is weaker. "Chronically anxious peoples' brains experience everything as aversive," he says. Less anxious people, in contrast, take more of a "top-down" approach—the rational parts of their brain take over when they experience something potentially anxiety inducing, and they essentially talk themselves into not getting worked up.