Dealing with Stress as a Young Adult

After you’ve settled into a career, you face a whole new type of stress in your late twenties and thirties. You’re well past the point now where you have to worry about stresses from school such as bullying or grades, but now you’re in a whole new situation: your job, your family, and to a greater extent, you’re now really on your own.

This stage in your life is full of figuring things out and having to put up with a lot of stuff that can be stressful. Most stresses around this age come from your job and finances. This can vary greatly depending on what job or career you’re in by this point, but let’s take the average office job for instance.

Chances are the work is a bit tedious and repetitive, meaning that after a few years, you’ll want a change so badly that you’ll start to worry that you’ve gone into the wrong field for your career.

These regretful kinds of stresses are the worst ones by far, because you feel as though you’re trapped and powerless to undo the path you’re on. You might feel stuck where you are.

For many people around this age, they start feeling as if they’re actually getting old for once. They’re no longer in school, no more being just silly in college, but just living a full adult life.

This can come as a sudden and bizarre revelation, but the concept of feeling old can stress some people out. Some might feel as though the best of their days have blown by, and now they have to be serious for the rest of their life.

Another factor that comes with getting a little older is that some people will start to feel as though their bodies aren’t as active as they used to be. As most people go into adulthood, they miss the unending activity and abundant energy they had in school.

But this process doesn’t happen all at once. It can start as early as your late twenties with simple things such as soreness and perhaps some back pain from moving around a certain way. This can take a serious toll on someone’s confidence and can be a major cause of stress.

One of the most serious stress factors around this age can come from having a family. By this time, most people are making decisions about a partner. Perhaps they’re married, and they might even have one or more kids. Parenting alone can cause immense amounts of stress for someone who’s just learning how to go about it, and this goes for all ages of kids.

People around this age might be a lot more open about what they’re stressed out about than other age groups are, and in fact might be the most clear about it. They’ll often complain about their problems to close friends and family, whether they’re unhappy with their job or worried about feeling older and the responsibilities that go along with it.

Usually you can find out what’s wrong with them by listening to what they choose to complain about. Something many people might start to do around this age is make rash decisions for the sole purpose of breaking up the monotony.

Essentially, by doing something very different from what they’re used to, they feel “alive” again, and are just happy to be doing something different for once. This can vary between getting a new car, going on a vacation, or taking up some kind of strange obsession or hobby.Just something that they can enjoy and ignore work or the stresses of life for a little bit.

One unfortunate sign of stress from people in this age group is that they cease to do things that they used to do for fun. Getting rid of certain hobbies just because they either don’t have the time or money for it anymore is a sign that they’re not having a good time going through this stage in life. For example, if someone used to enjoy doing things with friends every weekend, but now never comes out, chances are they’re going through a lot and want to seclude themselves as a result.

This can lead to additional feelings of loneliness on the part of the person secluding themselves, which can in turn cause even worse stress. One of the best solutions for a lot of stressful problems at this age is to simply have some downtime.

It doesn’t have to be a lot, and it doesn’t have to be expensive, but just having an hour or so to do what you like each day to help decompress can turn someone’s life around really quickly.

If you can take some time to just do nothing for a bit, or something that really gives you joy, then you’ll be a whole lot happier as the day goes on. This can also come in the form of short breaks throughout work, just to revitalize.

Many people get stressed out at this stage over mindset issues, and having a change of attitude can mean the world to them. Switching their outlook from a negative one to a positive one can make things like work, parenting, and aging a whole lot more likable than just sitting there moping and looking on the bad side of everything. Everyone knows there are many drawbacks to those things, but there are also positive aspects that you have to embrace.

When it comes to helping with stress related to body issues, getting into a consistent workout schedule can help immensely. People start to experience things like aches and pains because they aren’t using their bodies as much as they should be – especially if they’re sitting in office chairs all day. By getting into a good workout routine, you’ll be in better shape and you’ll be a lot more mobile.

Stress will happen in every phase of your life, just the nature of the stressors will change over time. Make it a habit early in life to develop healthy coping skills for your stress, and you will be better off for the rest of your life.