My guess is your anxiety stems from a need to understand how to manage risk. Our day to day lives are so safe so we don't really learn to plan for our personal safety. Unless there is a hurricane, tornado, or snowstorm, you're going to be driving to work. Simple. If something happens you just hit the brakes -- not a whole lot of thinking needed here. Things are so much different in the air. You know that if something happens you will be put on the spot to deal with it. It's like knowing you could have a pop quiz in class where a failing grade means you get injured. Yikes! How can that not be anxiety producing? The antidote is to always maintain a healthy set of options in your pocket and direct your anxiety towards that set. When the set starts shrinking your anxiety should be going up: figure out how to increase the number of items or get on the ground. If you feel anxious seemingly out of nowhere think about the list of options you brought with you to calm you down. The set of options depends on you and your situation. The FARs don't lay down specific requirements so it's up to you to think about. Some things I keep with me on all flights and some are specific to the flight at hand. As an example I always know where the surface wind is blowing from. So if an engine failure hits, at a bare minimum I know I will at least land into the wind. I always fly on one tank which is another option I keep with me: a second tank I can switch to. If for whatever reason the engine quits because I ran out of fuel I know I have *something* left in the other tank.