By Lily Hurst, Content Team Academic

1 in 3 young adults report experiencing significant anxiety symptoms. The age range between 18 to 25, is the transition from adolescence to adulthood. 

In this blog, I am going to be exploring the causes of anxiety, alongside coping strategies, while emphasising the strains and struggles that happen during this transition period.

Anxiety peaks between the ages 18-25. These years are a critical period of adult life referred to as “early adulthood”. The prefrontal cortex controls planning, decision making, and acting under impulse. This is still developing until around the age 25. This implies that young adults are more prone to risk taking and making impulsive decisions. 

Often, during this period of life, there are multiple potential life transitions such as: moving out, university, new jobs, relationships, and the potential confusion of who you really are. Within these potential life changes comes a lot of pressures. These could involve academic stress, struggles within the job market, and social media. Sounds silly doesn’t it: “social media”, but there are multiple pressures within this age category regarding social media, such as putting yourself in proportion to what you’re exploring online.

Anxiety is evident within young adults, from cognitive symptoms such as overthinking, and fear of failure. This is common between the ages 18-25, as you’re discovering who you are, and what you would like to do, the pressures of having to know what you would like to do rather than the question being ‘what would you like to be when you grow up?’ This can create emotional symptoms of constant worry and low mood, due to the pressures you can place on yourself. 

When suffering with emotional symptoms, the symptoms can become physical, creating headaches, lack of appetite, and can affect your sleep. These effects naturally can make you anxious. 

When suffering from anxiety, procrastinating the things you need to do can become an occurring issue. I say issue, as it is a behavioural pattern that can help in the moment, but create more anxiety in the long run (this is from experience!).

Having experienced anxiety, and the cognitive, emotional and physical symptoms along with new behavioural patterns caused by anxiety, I’m here writing this blog to allow you to realise there are coping strategies and support systems that do work. 

Exercise is a massive help to sufferers. You may feel that it wouldn’t work, and it does take up a lot of courage and energy to get started, but according to Zimakor Ewuzie, Chimezirim Ezeano and Aderinto (2024), exercise boosts serotonin, dopamine and endorphins, helping to ‘lift moods’ and ‘reduce anxiety’. 

Exercise is also a physical distraction from anxiety, as you’re shifting your focus to what you’re doing, rather than focusing on the negative thoughts that could be creating your anxiety. It is found that accomplishing fitness goals builds natural confidence within your ability to deal with the stress and anxiety. It only takes 5 to 10 minutes of activity to trigger anti-anxiety effects. Longer sessions will have longer lasting benefits and can help with sleep issues too. 

Another coping mechanism that helps young adults with anxiety could be journaling. Journaling helps understand your own emotions and overcome them in ways you are comfortable doing so. All coping mechanisms are there to help distract the mind. Unhealthy patterns can consist of overusing mobile devices or screens. This is not a healthy cycle to get into. 

Speaking to friends is so important, when opening up you’ll discover how common anxiety is, and how many people suffer in their own personal ways. Sharing experiences helps as you get to learn other coping mechanisms that may also help you personally. 

There is also professional help available within and outside the university environment. Professional help can be found through online sessions, therapy, or on campus with a mental health team. 

You may often wonder what coping strategies are out there for sufferers aged between 18 and 25. Cognitive behavioural techniques such as journaling, planning and ‘experiments’ are found to help. You may wonder how and why? And what do you mean by experiments? Well, by ‘planning’ whatever it is that is stressing you out, whether that be day to day tasks, or even academically, regarding university work, planning is a working coping strategy (I often use this myself).

Planning helps you see what there is to do, but also helps you see your progress and what you have done. When suffering from any form of anxiety, it is easy to look at what there is to do, and dwell in the feeling of ‘never catching up’, or ‘never finishing what needs to be done’. This can lead to spiralling. Why?… With planning, you can tick off things once they’re complete, motivating you to complete your tasks to tick off things. 

Journaling helps in a similar way, getting things written down helps the mind to be able to process how and what you’re feeling. This is because it provides cognitive clarity during mental overload. It helps provide a more manageable thought process. 

You may be confused by ‘experiment’ and wonder how on earth this is a good coping strategy? By experiment I mean test your negative beliefs, do the unthinkable, and practice whatever it is that is making you anxious, and note down how it went, how it made you feel. Was it as bad as you thought it was going to be? 

For example, if you’re anxious and worked up regarding speaking in class, try stepping out of your comfort zone by challenging the anxiety and trying new behaviours. It may help overcome the feeling. Noting down how it went can help to remind yourself it wasn’t as bad as you felt it would be, for whenever you’re next in that same situation when your anxiety is telling you otherwise.

Reference page:

Lisa Howard (2023). Anxiety disorders will affect nearly 1 in 3 adults: Here’s what you need to know. [online] UC Davis Health. Available at: https://health.ucdavis.edu/news/headlines/anxiety-disorders-will-affect-nearly-1-in-3-adults-heres-what-you-need-to-know/2023/05.

Zimakor Ewuzie, Chimezirim Ezeano and Aderinto, N. (2024). A review of exercise interventions for reducing anxiety symptoms: Insights and implications. Medicine, [online] 103(41), pp.e40084–e40084. doi: https://doi.org/10.1097/md.0000000000040084.

Williams, A. (2019). Twenge, J. M. (2017). iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy-and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood and What That Means for the Rest of Us. New York, NY: Atria. ISBN: 978-1-5011-5201-6 paperback. Family and Consumer Sciences Research Journal, 48(3). doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/fcsr.12345.

Hofmann, S.G., Asnaani, A., Vonk, I.J.J., Sawyer, A.T. and Fang, A. (2012). The Efficacy of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: a Review of Meta-Analyses. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 36(5), pp.427–440. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-012-9476-1.