Common Causes of Anxiety in Teens and Young Adults

Expectations, whether self-inflicted or coming from others, are among the top things that cause teens stress and anxiety. Most teens want to do well and might expect to attend prestigious universities. Many participate in after-school sports and part-time jobs. They also volunteer, participate in community events, have chores at home, and want to maintain active social lives. These expectations increase anxiety levels and leave very little time for decompressing. They can also interfere with sleep, which is necessary for managing stress and anxious thoughts.

Hormone production ebbs and flows during adolescence. Sometimes, your teen might feel anxious, upset, depressed, and angry for no reason at all, and hormonal fluctuations likely cause this. Teenage boys are dealing with testosterone surges, and teenage girls are dealing with hormonal shifts due to menstruation. These hormones, when combined with a lack of experience in dealing with these feelings and general immaturity, are a key driver of teen anxiety and emotional distress.

Young people don’t have fully developed brains until they are in their early- to mid-twenties or even later. As such, your son or daughter has probably had many moments where they didn’t know what they were doing or felt a lack of confidence in their abilities. Frustration mixed with a lack of ability when it comes to “adulting” triggers anxiety in young adults and teens, and it can be hard to address without proper support.

Adolescents are navigating a challenging phase where they seek their parents’ approval while also yearning to push against parental authority. This dynamic can be frustrating for both teens and parents. When teens encounter disapproval from their parents, it’s natural for them to feel stressed and anxious, even as they persist in behaviors that their parents naturally disapprove of. This cycle is one of the major causes of anxiety in teens despite being a natural stage in development.

Kids today are under much pressure from their peers, both in person and online. Peer pressure can be positive or negative, but both types raise anxiety levels. For example, being pressured to shoplift or commit some other crime is stressful and an example of negative peer pressure. Positive pressure, for example, is when your teen’s peers are getting excellent grades, applying to good universities, and excelling in extracurriculars, all of which puts a lot of pressure on your own teen to conform and keep up.

Other anxiety triggers for teens that peers exacerbate are those related to a lack of social skills, confidence, or comfort. Your teen might dread going to school and talking to people or may struggle with feeling that they’re being judged in social situations. Social anxiety can result from bullying or can just appear seemingly out of nowhere and is different from general shyness.

Many teens experiment with alcohol and, in some cases, drugs, despite knowing they shouldn’t be doing this and that their parents will disapprove. Peer pressure might also be involved. All of these factors can be causes of anxiety in teens before, during, and after substance experimentation. And some teens will go on to become addicted to these substances, which raises anxiety levels even higher.

Notably, some anxious teens already will turn to substances as a form of self-medication. It rarely works. Instead, anxiety levels go up, which leads to more self-medication, which becomes a dangerous cycle that’s hard to break free from.

Some teens have depression, which can present at the same time as teenage anxiety. Symptoms of depression can overlap with the symptoms of anxiety, so it can be difficult for parents to know which mental health concern is responsible for which symptoms. The symptoms of depression to be aware of include:

• Feelings of sadness, hopelessness, or despair that last longer than two weeks
• Social isolation, not wanting to leave the house or even the bed
• Physical symptoms like headaches, stomachaches, muscle aches, and fatigue
• Irritability
• Insomnia or sleeping too much
• Eating too much or too little
• Trouble concentrating and making decisions
• In severe cases, suicidal ideation