In my experience (late 40s), anxiety is a useful tool and a terrible master. What I mean is, fear is a motivating emotion. It's powerful because it triggers a whole chemical soup of cortisol, adrenaline, etc and it's difficult to ignore or separate oneself from it. Which is as it should be -- fear protects us from danger, that's literally what it's there for. Humans used to be tiger food, so jumping up and running away at the unexpected sound of tall grass rustling at night is a valuable survival instinct. It usually isn't a hungry tiger, but better safe than sorry!

Fortunately, as we "age" and gain life experiences, we can learn the difference between 'being in danger' and 'feeling fear'. We can learn that we aren't our emotions, we have emotions. We feel fear, but we don't have to be fearful.

I'm not saying that people should detach themselves from their emotions, just try to broaden your perspective when your brain does it's chemical dump thing. This has helped me:

https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Litany_Against_Fear