Quarter life crisis: why your twenties can feel this lost, and what actually helps

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A quarter life crisis is the stretch of your twenties or early thirties when you feel lost, anxious and behind. The career that was supposed to have started by now, the flat you cannot afford, the friends who seem to be getting engaged and promoted while you are still working out what you want: the gap between the life you expected and the life you have turns into anxiety and a loss of direction. Researchers at the University of Leeds who studied it describe it as something young people can go through in the transition to adulthood, when they have difficulty finding their place in the world.

A quarter life crisis is not a diagnosis, and having one does not mean you have failed at adulthood. This article covers what is going on, why it tends to land in this decade, and what helps. Everything in it is drawn from NHS self-help material, the Mental Health Foundation and UK mental health charities including Mind. If the anxiety is the loudest part for you, anxiety self-help is the practical hub and this piece sits alongside it. If what you feel is flat and heavy more than anxious, your GP is the right next step, and the section on when to see your GP below says what to look for.

What is a quarter life crisis?

A quarter life crisis is a period of doubt about your direction, usually in your twenties or early thirties. The phrase is not a clinical term. You will not find it in NHS guidance and no GP will diagnose you with one. What the NHS does describe is what sits underneath it: stress, which it says is often linked to a sense of losing control, anxiety, with worry you cannot switch off and difficulty concentrating, and low mood, which brings low confidence and trouble sleeping with it. A quarter life crisis is usually some mix of those three, wrapped around questions about work, money, relationships and whether you chose right.

Age is the thing people fixate on and it is the least useful part. The University of Leeds project framed it as a difficulty in the transition to adulthood, and that transition can stall at 23 when the structure of education falls away, or at 31 when the life you built on purpose stops fitting. People tend to describe one of two shapes. One is feeling trapped: a job, a relationship or a city you chose and now cannot see a way out of. The other is feeling shut out: the milestones you assumed you would have reached by now, a stable job, a home of your own, a settled relationship, are out of reach, and everyone else seems to have them.

Why it lands in your twenties and early thirties

Pressure to succeed, comparison, money and a stack of first-time decisions all arrive in the same decade. A YouGov poll for the Mental Health Foundation of more than 4,600 UK adults found that the pressure to succeed was a source of stress for 60% of 18 to 24 year olds and 41% of 25 to 34 year olds, against 17% of 45 to 54 year olds and 6% of over 55s. Among 18 to 24 year olds who had felt high levels of stress, 49% said comparing themselves to others was part of it, a higher share than any older group. Housing worries were named by 32% of 18 to 24 year olds. Only 7% of young adults said they had never felt overwhelmed or unable to cope in the past year, compared with 30% of older people.

School, college and university also hand you a track with a next step built in, and then the track stops. Student Minds, the UK student mental health charity, describes graduation as a big part of a person's life that can feel daunting, with mixed emotions and concerns about the future, and says plainly that relationships with university friends will change once it ends and that finding a graduate job can take time. The first years of adult life also hold more first-time decisions than any other stretch: where to live, what to do for money, who to be with, whether to move home or away. Each one feels permanent at the time. Almost none of them are.

Money sits under a lot of it. The Mental Health Foundation lists debt and rising living costs among the common causes of stress, alongside work pressures such as lack of control, job insecurity and feeling unrewarded. If your crisis is mostly a maths problem, money worries and mental health covers the practical side.

Is it normal to feel like you are in crisis at 25, or at 31?

Yes, feeling lost in your twenties or early thirties is common and not a sign you are broken. The NHS says in its stress guidance that most people feel stressed at some point, and the Mental Health Foundation's figures above show how heavily that lands on young adults in particular. Thirty-one is not too old for it and twenty-three is not too young. If you are 31 and wondering whether this is an early midlife crisis, the label does not change what helps.

What makes it feel abnormal is the comparison. The friends getting engaged, the school acquaintance buying a house, the person from your course who is already a manager: you see their highlights and measure them against your whole life. Mind's self-esteem guidance makes the point that what people choose to share about their lives is not always the full picture, and suggests limiting time on social media if comparing yourself to others is dragging you down. How to stop comparing yourself to others goes deeper on that one habit, because for a lot of people it is the engine of the whole crisis.

What a quarter life crisis can look like day to day

Most people do not experience a quarter life crisis as a single dramatic moment. More often it is a background hum that gets louder. The NHS lists the signs of stress as trouble concentrating, difficulty making decisions, feeling swamped, constant worry and forgetfulness, with irritability, sleeping or eating more or less than usual, avoiding places or people, and drinking or smoking more on the behavioural side. The anxiety version adds tension, being unable to relax, worrying about the past or the future and poor sleep. The low mood version adds low confidence and self-esteem, tiredness and feeling on edge or frustrated.

In practice that looks like scrolling job adverts at midnight without applying for any of them, snapping at a partner over nothing, cancelling plans because you cannot face the "so what are you up to now" question, or lying awake running the same comparison on a loop. Some people throw themselves into a sudden change, a new city or a breakup, in the hope that movement will fix the feeling. Others freeze. If the freeze is the bigger problem, no motivation to do anything is written for exactly that state. If you have the job everyone told you to want and feel like a fraud inside it, imposter syndrome at work covers the version where the crisis hides inside apparent success.

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How do I get through a quarter life crisis?

Getting through a quarter life crisis starts with naming the source, then one small step at a time. None of the steps below is a cure and none is specific to this decade. They are what NHS and UK charity self-help describes for stress, anxiety and low mood, applied to this particular tangle.

Find the actual source. The Mental Health Foundation suggests keeping a note of your stress signs over a couple of days or weeks and connecting them to the pressures in your life, so you can see where the stress is coming from and what you could change. A quarter life crisis feels like everything is wrong. Written down, it is usually two or three things, and often only one of them is urgent.

Solve one problem and park the rest for now. NHS Every Mind Matters has a problem-solving guide built on separating the problems you can do something about from the ones you cannot, and working through the first kind step by step. The NHS low mood and anxiety guidance says the same thing in plainer words: set small, achievable goals rather than trying to do everything at once, and focus your energy on what you can change.

Treat "I am behind" as a thought. Mind's advice for low self-esteem is to challenge unkind thoughts about yourself by looking for reasons they might not be true, and to ask whether you would speak to a friend the way you speak to yourself. The NHS Every Mind Matters guide to reframing unhelpful thoughts covers the same skill. "Everyone my age has it figured out" is a prediction, and a badly evidenced one.

Shrink the comparison on purpose. Mind suggests limiting how much time you spend on social media or online communities if comparing yourself to others is feeding low self-esteem. You do not have to delete anything. Muting the three accounts that reliably make you feel behind is a reasonable start.

Keep the basics, especially the ones that slipped. The NHS lists regular exercise, regular meals and not using alcohol, cigarettes, gambling or drugs to cope among the things that help with stress, anxiety and low mood, and Mind adds enough sleep. A crisis about the shape of your whole life is much harder to think about on four hours of sleep and a hangover.

Add one thing that is yours. The NHS five steps to mental wellbeing include connecting with other people, learning a new skill and helping others, because each builds confidence and a sense of purpose. Pick one thing that has nothing to do with your CV. Mind makes the same suggestion in its self-esteem guidance: volunteer, learn something new, set small goals you can hit.

Tell someone the real version. The NHS advice for stress, anxiety and low mood all starts with talking to someone you trust, whether a friend, a family member or a health professional. Say the unedited thing: "I do not know what I am doing and I think everyone else does." The reply is very often "me neither".

Wobble's therapists work to the Wobble response framework, a structured way of answering a message like that: what they understood about where you are, practical guidance, and one clear next step. People use it once at the sharp end of a crisis, or as a regular check-in while they work through the slower questions, which is closer to therapy's rhythm without the appointment. Wobble's Clinical Lead is James Penney, NCPS Accredited Psychotherapeutic Counsellor.

When the crisis is mostly about work

A career that feels wrong at 26 is a problem with a lot of time left to solve it. Student Minds' advice to graduates is to give yourself the time and the space to find the right way to begin, and not to panic if you do not have a graduate job yet. That holds for the 31 year old in the wrong profession too. The Mental Health Foundation names lack of control, excessive workload, job insecurity and feeling unrewarded as the common work causes of stress. Working out which one is yours is more useful than deciding you chose the wrong life at 21. If the job is making you ill rather than boring you, signs of stress at work covers the point where it becomes a health matter.

When to see your GP, and when it is urgent

See your GP if you are struggling to cope or self-help is not shifting anything. Those are the NHS's own thresholds for stress, anxiety and low mood. The NHS adds that a low mood lasting two weeks or more may be a sign of depression, and that losing interest in life, feeling hopeless or having thoughts of self-harm are reasons to see a GP now. A quarter life crisis is not a diagnosis, but what sits under it can become one, and you do not need to be at rock bottom for a GP appointment to be reasonable. If it is affecting your life, that is enough.

In England you can refer yourself to NHS Talking Therapies if you are 18 or over (16 or over in some areas), without going through your GP, for persistent low mood or anxiety. Waits vary widely. In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland the GP route is the standard one. A BACP, UKCP, BABCP, BPS or NCS registered therapist can help privately, and BACP's register and Counselling Directory both let you search by what you want help with.

If you need help urgently but it is not an emergency, call NHS 111 and select the mental health option. If someone's life is at risk, or you do not feel you can keep yourself safe, call 999 or go to A&E. The NHS says a mental health emergency should be taken as seriously as a physical one.

Who you can talk to today

Several people will talk to you today, and the free routes come first.

• NHS Talking Therapies is free, and in England you can refer yourself without seeing a GP if you are 18 or over.
• NHS 111 has a mental health option you can select, day or night.
• Samaritans are on 116 123, free, 24 hours a day, every day.
• Shout is a free, confidential text service, 24 hours a day: text SHOUT to 85258.
• Mind's Infoline on 0300 123 3393 can tell you where to get help near you, 9am to 6pm Monday to Friday.
• Your GP can help if the feeling has been there for weeks or is affecting your days.

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Quick summary

A quarter life crisis is the lost, anxious, behind-everyone stretch of your twenties or early thirties. It is not a diagnosis, but the stress, anxiety and low mood underneath it are real and the NHS describes all three. Pressure to succeed, comparison, money and a decade of first-time decisions explain why it lands now. What helps is finding the actual source, solving one problem at a time, treating "I am behind" as a thought, shrinking the comparison, keeping the basics and telling someone the real version. See your GP if you are struggling to cope or low mood has lasted more than two weeks. You do not have to work out the whole of your life this month.

For the habit underneath most of it, see how to stop comparing yourself to others. For the frozen version, see no motivation to do anything. For the practical anxiety toolkit, see anxiety self-help.

Sources and further reading

• NHS: Stress
• NHS: Anxiety, fear and panic
• NHS: Low mood, sadness and depression
• NHS: 5 steps to mental wellbeing
• NHS Every Mind Matters: Self-help CBT techniques
• NHS Talking Therapies self-referral (England)
• NHS: Where to get urgent help for mental health
• Mental Health Foundation: Stress statistics (2018 YouGov survey)
• Mental Health Foundation: How to manage and reduce stress
• Mind: Tips to improve your self-esteem
• Mind: Helplines
• Student Minds: Graduation
• University of Leeds: Understanding and supporting young adults through the quarter-life crisis
• BACP: find a therapist
• Counselling Directory
• Samaritans: 116 123
• Shout: text 85258

This article is for information only and does not replace advice from a qualified medical professional. If stress, anxiety or low mood are affecting your daily life, please speak to your GP or contact NHS 111. If you are in crisis, please call 999 or go to A&E.