Anxiety is the main antagonist of Disney•Pixar's 2024 animated feature film Inside Out 2. She is one of the new emotions and the sixth inside Riley Andersen's mind.

Due to her motivation to turn Riley into a new version of herself, Anxiety represses Riley's core Emotions by driving them out of Headquarters, the other Emotions make her see the error of her ways and they all come to a mutual understanding.

A bundle of frazzled energy, Anxiety enthusiastically ensures Riley's prepared for every possible negative outcome. Protecting the new teen from the dangers she can't see, Anxiety is determined to make sure Riley fits in with her high school peers at all costs. Armed with meticulously organized lists and plans to make sure Riley never makes a mistake, Anxiety thinks ten steps ahead and isn't shy about sharing worst case scenarios. Anxiety knows she's a lot to deal with, but feels pushing Riley toward perfection means being that much closer to achieving her goals.

Anxiety, like her namesake, is the literal embodiment of any and all feelings of nervousness, tension, stress, and the like. She's extremely nervous and anxious about many things, such as meeting preexisting emotions like Joy, especially because she wants to make a good first impression. Her main job is to protect Riley from things she "can't see" and plans for the future. As such, she is an intense planner, predicting everything that can go wrong so that she can find a way to avoid it and desperately tries to fix it if it does happen. Everything must go exactly as she had planned, with every mistake being seen as something that may "haunt" her later.

During her first appearance she is described to be highly energetic, zealous, and a typical geek filled with excitement towards working with the original five emotions. Similar to Fear, Anxiety is prone to overthinking things, though to a larger extent. While Fear's overthinking is a reaction to a perceived threat that soon disappears once that threat is out of sight, Anxiety projects those fears, leading her to try to think of any scenario that can go wrong, even if they are not a reality. This is showed with her over planning regarding Riley's future on high school, leading her to pressure the girl to do everything she could to get a spot on the hockey team of her future high school and blend in with the older girls. However, none of this is out of malice as her intent was to protect Riley from being alone in high school.

Despite being self-aware and extremely analytical, Anxiety is not without her limits. Her extreme overthinking and insecurities can blind her judgment, causing her to go past her limits and forget what was truly important. Her hardworking and ambitious nature is overshadowed by her restlessness and self-destructive mindset, shown through Riley's feelings of inadequacy through Anxiety's driving. The more Anxiety kept adding to Riley's Sense of Self about trying to become good enough to make the team, the more Riley felt that she really was not good enough, until it became a reality to her, leading to both Riley and Anxiety having an anxiety attack.

Similar to Joy in the first movie, Anxiety is also a control freak, wanting nothing but to be in control of everything in Riley's life, hating when she is placed on the backseat of the controls, especially if that strays away from her plans. However, she is willing to get rid of everything she sees as unnecessary and/or dangerous to what she perceives as being the right thing for Riley, being extremely pragmatic about it, even if she has to "bottle up" the old emotions or reinvent Riley's entire sense of self. The more Anxiety tried to change things into what she believed to be Riley's best self, she would take even more control over everything, even if was too much for her to handle, until the point she got stuck into her own feelings of anxiety.

After Joy was able to convince her to let go of her control over Riley, Anxiety was able to see how her desire to shape Riley into what she perceived to be her best version by any means necessary was hurting her. Not only that, but, with a little help from Joy's positivity, she also learned to let go of the worries Riley didn't have control on, focusing only on the ones she did.

Anxiety appears as an orange emotion with a stretched-like frog face, small thick auburn disjointed eyebrows and dilated jade green eyes, roundly spaced teeth, and a volcanic eruption-like yarn style updo of a darker shade of the same color. She wears an orange and off white-striped mock neck wool sweater, rust brown pants attached by a dark chocolate brown belt with a gold button-shaped buckle, and auburn tightly laced up military boots.

In the book, Go to Sleep, Anxiety!, she's seen wearing a long sleeved, orange and white striped nightgown that matches her ordinary attire and brown slippers.

Anxiety enters headquarters after Riley Andersen turns 13 years old. As she appears in Headquarters, the other Emotions are scared of her. Soon after she appears, Envy, Embarrassment, and Ennui also appear alongside her in the headquarters. Nostalgia also shows up, but she is quick to send her back to the basement of Headquarters.

With the same goal as the other emotions, Anxiety only wanted the best for Riley. Her main goal was to help Riley plan for the future. Anxiety would do anything to help Riley get better, but she saw that her original Belief System and the original five Emotions were preventing Riley from getting better. Anxiety threw Riley's Sense of Self to the back of her mind and plans to create a new one for her, but the original five emotions refuse to let her do so. Believing that she is doing the best, Anxiety turns against the original emotions and sent them to the Vault with the help of Embarrassment, telling them that Riley doesn't need them anymore for now.

Throughout the film, Anxiety fueled Riley's beliefs with her own memories, slowly changing Riley's beliefs. One of her most cherished beliefs included: "If I'm a Firehawk, then I won't be alone." Anxiety continued to feed on Riley's beliefs by using her own imagination against her and creating scenarios that would make her overthink. Anxiety, thinking that she was helping Riley, thought that this was crucial so that Riley would be able to see potential mistakes and act upon it. The old emotions are able to escape and do their best to prevent Anxiety's plans, with Joy foiling Anxiety's use of Riley's imagination by turning the Mind Workers against her. On the final day of the camp, Anxiety finally finished Riley's new Sense of Self where Riley tells herself that she's not good enough. Much to Anxiety's dismay, she told the other emotions that it would be fine as long as they completed the final test of the camp, to which the emotions looked at each other in concern.

Anxiety continued to pressure Riley into scoring three goals. This went as far as ignoring her own teammates and accidentally injures her friend Grace on the ice rink (along with Envy calling her out on it). Due to this, Riley was sent to the penalty box, where she started to have an anxiety attack from the pressure she and Anxiety have put on herself. Anxiety finally realizes her fatal mistake and desperately tries to fix it, forming a whirlwind around the console and prompting Riley to have an anxiety attack.

It wasn't until Joy's intervention that Anxiety realized the gravity of the situation, shedding a tear of regret, but Joy managed to get Anxiety out of the storm, and she along with Sadness, Disgust, Anger, Fear, Envy, Embarrassment and Ennui managed to pull out the Sense of Self that Anxiety created and tossing it out of Headquarters and into the Memory Dump, putting the old one back, but it doesn't stop the storm around the console. Anxiety, still on the ground, repentant, apologized to Joy, saying that she only wanted to protect Riley, but now understands that Joy was right about not being able to choose what Riley is. When Joy realizes that she cannot discard Riley's memories, no matter how bad they are, removes Riley's old Sense of Self, thus forming a new one. Joy, contemplating the new Sense of Self, hugs it, then Sadness joins her, along with the other main emotions, then the new ones and finally Anxiety joins the group hug, making the storm dissolve, making Riley manage to calm down. In the end, Anxiety lets Joy take control of the Console when Riley voluntarily calls Joy after she reconciles with Grace and Bree.

When Riley was in high school, Anxiety is overthinking whether Riley got accepted into Firehawks or not. Joy told Anxiety to relax and to focus that energy on things Riley had more control over, like studying for her Spanish test. In the end, Anxiety and the other new emotions peacefully coexisted with the older emotions.

Anxiety is a playable character in Disney Heroes: Battle Mode. Introduced in Update 6.11., Anxiety is a Back-Line Support role hero. Anxiety's skills are: "Anxious Code Frenzy", "Chaotic Energy Boost", "Electric Whirl", "Anxiety Memories", and "My Stuffs". These skills allow Anxiety to (in the order):

Additionally, Anxiety's Basic Attacks grant her stacks of "Disquiet". Each stack of "Disquiet" grants Anxiety a chance to Dodge Damage and Debuffs and she can have up to a certain amount of stacks.

Anxiety has friendship campaigns with Kuzco and Sadness.

Anxiety is the only of the four new emotions, who is seen in the minds of Riley's parents, proving that she and the other emotions will remain inside of Riley even when she reaches adulthood, appearing whenever they are necessary.

Anxiety is shown drinking coffee as well as energy drinks which both often contain caffeine. Appropriately, caffeine can trigger anxiety in some people.

Anxiety is the second female antagonist in a Pixar film to reform at the end after Gabby Gabby in Toy Story 4.

Anxiety shares several things in common with the original five Emotions: Joy's leadership, Fear's cartoonish appearance and nervous personality, Anger's action of hitting the console and pulling the levers at the same time (as well as his disdain for the TripleDent Gum jingle), Disgust's eye color and social role, and the wearing of a sweater and her relevance as the second most important Emotion just like Sadness.

Anxiety also shares similarities in her design and some of her personality traits with Neurosis, a character from another Disney project called Hercules.

Anxiety was called Self-Loathing in a deleted scene.

• Anxiety on Pixar Wiki