Feeling Overwhelmed? How Therapy Can Help Young Adults Cope with Stress

To the 18-to-25-year-olds,

Truth be told, this stage of life is hard. One minute your parents, teachers, or the so-called ‘real adults’ are running the show, and the next you’re expected to step onto the main stage as one of them - as if there were a secret adulting handbook handed round and yours got lost somewhere in the post.

You might find yourself in that wobbly in-between space where you feel competent in your professional life, yet still occasionally need to Chat GPT how to boil an egg. Or perhaps you’ve mastered domestic life - your houseplants are alive, the bathroom mould is under control, and booking your own dentist appointment no longer fills you with dread - but you haven’t yet found a career that feels fulfilling or true to you.

And life can start to feel like a never-ending balancing act. You may be trying to build a career, manage finances, nurture friendships, navigate dating, and might be living away from family for the first time - all while quietly trying to figure out who you are and where you’re going.

Then add the subtle torture of comparing your life to everyone else’s highlight reels on social media, the very real rise of destructive perfectionism dressed up as ‘motivation’ and ‘self-development’, and the reality of London prices (yes, £7 for an oat latte should be illegal). Suddenly it makes perfect sense why so many young adults feel overwhelmed.

Stress vs. Burnout

Stress itself isn’t the enemy. It’s your body’s built-in way of helping you rise to challenges, an energising push that gets you through those harder moments like a work project, moving flats, or having that difficult conversation.

Burnout, however, happens when that stress doesn’t ease up and recovery never happens. When rest keeps getting delayed, then delayed again, until it disappears from the picture. Without the chance to recharge your battery, burnout does not just knock politely. It eventually walks straight in.

And it’s not just tiredness. It’s a deeper kind of depletion. You might notice yourself feeling detached or unmotivated, struggling to concentrate, becoming unusually irritated or strangely numb, or losing interest in things that once mattered. It’s not a sign of weakness. It’s your system asking for some care and repair.

Stress whispers, ‘This is a lot’.

Burnout shouts, ‘I can’t keep doing this’.

A few small steps you can try right now:

1.     Slow down to check in, not check out.

When stress ramps up, the instinct is often to push through or distract yourself. Instead, try pausing for a moment. Take three slow breaths (longer on the exhale) and ask yourself, ‘What do I need right now?’ Sometimes the answer is rest, sometimes connection, sometimes just permission to stop striving for a moment.

2.     Create a small ritual that grounds you.

It doesn’t have to be elaborate. A short walk, a few minutes of journalling, lighting a candle, stretching, having a bath, or making a cup of tea. Find something that signals safety to your nervous system and helps turn what feels overwhelming back into something you can move through.

3.     Lighten the load you are carrying (even slightly).

You do not have to overhaul your entire life to feel better. Sometimes taking just one small thing off your plate can bring an immense sense of relief. Postpone that nonessential task and remind yourself that sense of urgency was only coming from you. Ask that friend you were meant to meet at the pub for a FaceTime catch up from your sofa. Call on your housemate for help with that domestic task that’s been bugging you…say no to that event you already know will drain you. Small adjustments create space, and space creates relief.

Over the years, I’ve sat with many young adults navigating this tricky stage of life - and no - your generation is not ‘too sensitive’, ‘over-dramatic’, ‘entitled’, ‘lazy’, or any of the other poorly-informed labels that get thrown around. What I see in the therapy room is not fragility, but young people carrying the weight of a genuinely challenging landscape, in a world that feels unpredictable in ways previous generations didn’t have to contend with.

Stability has been hard to come by - recessions that might have shaped family life, a pandemic cutting through your formative years, and now paying rent that earlier cohorts could scarcely have imagined. It’s tough out there. I witness that every day. And your feelings make sense in the context you’re growing up in.    

Therapy offers something that’s harder to find elsewhere: a steady and reliable space that’s entirely for you. It’s a place to explore the pressures you’ve carried over the years - the internal messages or ‘rules’ about who you should be, what you should achieve, or how you should cope. Together, we can start to gently challenge patterns that no longer serve you, and experiment with new ways of being that feel more supportive.

We’ll look at how stress shows up in your system - what sets it off, what builds it, and what can help it ease - so you can recognise early signs rather than reaching breaking point. In my practice, our work is collaborative, and our therapeutic relationship can become a kind of safe testing ground: a space to try out asking for what you need, setting boundaries, or letting yourself be supported without judgement.

If you’re feeling worn thin and ready for something to shift, I’m genuinely excited to meet you.