Anxiety is among the most common reasons why adolescents and young adults seek consultation. It is not a sign of weakness nor a trend: it is an alarm response that, in a life stage already dense with change, can activate too often and too intensely.
Causes of anxiety in young people
There is rarely a single cause. In clinical practice, these factors recur most often, frequently intertwined:
- School pressure and performance expectations. Grades, exams, university choices: the fear of disappointing often weighs more than the performance itself.
- Family and social expectations. When personal worth is perceived as tied to results, every test becomes a judgment on one's own identity.
- Continuous social comparison. Social media exposes one to a permanent comparison with selected versions of other people's lives, at a stage when identity is still being built.
- Peer relationships. Exclusion, conflicts, group dynamics, and forms of bullying have a profound impact during adolescence.
- Transitions. Changing schools, moving, a first job, the end of a relationship: every transition requires a readjustment that can temporarily be destabilizing.
- Irregular sleep and disrupted rhythms, which lower the tolerance threshold for stress and amplify everything else.
How it manifests
In young people, anxiety almost never announces itself by name. More often it manifests through the body or behavior.
On the physical level: recurring stomachaches and headaches, tachycardia, a lump in the throat, muscle tension, difficulty falling asleep. These are real symptoms, not "made up to avoid going to school."
On the emotional and cognitive level: constant worry, difficulty concentrating, irritability, thoughts that anticipate the worst-case scenario, a sense of inadequacy even in the face of good results.
On the behavioral level: avoidance of feared situations, continuous postponement, withdrawal from friends, giving up activities once enjoyed, or — conversely — hyper-control and perfectionism.
This changes a lot with age: in younger children, physical symptoms and the need for reassurance prevail; in adolescents, irritability and withdrawal; in young adults, rumination and performance-related anxiety.
Strategies that really help
- Giving a name to what is happening. Recognizing "this is anxiety" reduces the secondary alarm, that is, the fear of the symptoms themselves.
- Working on breathing. An exhalation longer than the inhalation lowers physiological activation within a few minutes. Autogenic Training structures this work in a more stable way.
- Gradually reducing avoidance. Every avoided situation reinforces the idea that it was truly dangerous. Gradually re-approaching it is the mechanism that dismantles the cycle.
- Restoring order to sleep. It is not glamorous, but it is remarkably effective.
- Scaling back online comparison, without demonizing it: what matters is the amount of time and the time of day.
- Do not leave parents out of the picture. When the family understands what is happening, it stops oscillating between minimizing and alarm.
When to seek professional support
The criterion is not how intense the anxiety is, but how much it interferes. It is worth seeking a consultation when symptoms last for several weeks, when they limit school, work, or social life, when progressive withdrawal appears, or when the family finds itself organizing its day around the young person's anxiety.
An initial consultation does not commit you to a treatment path: it serves to understand what is going on and what might be helpful.
If, however, thoughts of self-harm or not wanting to be here anymore appear, do not wait: talk to your doctor immediately, go to the emergency room, or call 112.
A journey in Florence or online
I work with adolescents and young adults on anxiety, panic attacks, and stress-related difficulties, integrating Gestalt psychotherapy, cognitive-behavioral techniques, Autogenic Training and, where indicated, EMDR. I receive clients in my office in Florence, at Via Tommaso Campanella 5, in the Campo di Marte area, and online, often a convenient format for those studying away from home.
Contact me for an initial exploratory consultation, with no obligation.
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