The 4 Principles that will Help you Manage Anxiety in your 20s

We often hear that anxiety is a defining problem of our current lifestyle, especially for our generation.

Statistics show that one in three adult will experience an anxiety disorder in their lifetime.

It’s almost as if anxiety has become this giant monster we all have to face.

But the reality is that anxiety’s been there all along. It’s an emotion that has existed for tens of thousands of years, yet it’s only in recent times that it has become such a widespread problem.

On an individual level, what happens is what I call an anxiety blockage. You cultivate this ideal life in your mind but the reality is often far from it.

That gap between expectation and reality fuels a lot of anxiety and creates the blockage.

And what makes this truly worse is the lack of conversation about it, especially among men.

To be honest, anxiety has always been a part of my daily life. It’s a feeling I carry with me most days.

That’s the reason why, today, I felt it would be helpful to share with you the four main lessons that have completely changed my relationship with anxiety and help me

Fix your Body

Anxiety is as much a physical issue as it is a psychological one, and if there’s one thing you need to start with, it’s making sure your body is functioning properly.

• You need to fuel your body with the right food.

• You need to use your body to its full capacity by exercising regularly.

• You need to allow it to recover, both mentally and physically, by getting proper sleep.

and If your life currently looks something like :

Waking up at 11 AM, late for work. Skipping breakfast. Just to sit in an overcrowded subway, spend eight hours at work in front of a computer while eating takeout food and then come home to sit on the couch and watch Netflix until 4 AM.

Well, your anxiety is supposed to be telling you that something is wrong.

Because the truth is that if your lifestyle is chaotic, it’s no surprise that you’re facing crippling anxiety on a daily basis as your body is in survival mode.

You’re just waking up everyday to work external goals and you’re never closing that gap between you and your actual goals.

The reality is that anxiety is not the enemy, anxiety is just an alarm system. In this case, it’s being triggered because your body is under constant stress and doesn’t have what it needs to manage it.

Think of it as an experiment: take a rat, put it in a cage with 100 other rats, keep it stimulated with screens when it’s supposed to sleep, and feed it processed food. Watch what happens.

That rat probably won’t live very long.

Now, I’m using an extreme example, but this scenario is the reality for a lot of college students or young adult in the workplace - and I was no exception, I felt trapped in a cage.

Everyday waking up waiting to finally work on the things that really mattered to me.

Just to realize that none of that will happen if I don’t give my body what it needs to get back optimal levels of energy.

So, the first piece of advice is clear: fix your body. Your mind can’t do all the work if you’re not even meeting your basic human needs.

The most effective way I’ve found to do this is by making the gym a habit.

Going to the gym has been nothing but a blessing. Physical exercise is the strongest natural remedy for anxiety that you can find.

What makes going to the gym so effective is that it forces you to be present in a stressful but safe environment.

It’s a deliberate way to put yourself under pressure, but for your own good. This is, by far, the most important piece of advice.

And if the gym isn’t for you, find a sport you enjoy and engage in it regularly—at least every two days if you want to see the real benefits.

You need to make it a habit, so it has to be frequent.

The cool thing about the gym is that it comes with a set of principles about nutrition and recovery that you need to follow to get results—it’s a lifestyle that will get you out of the anxiety blockage as it did for me.

[And if you want to know exactly how to adopt going to the gym as a lifestyle and transform your body as a result, you should check out fitness autonomy]

Anxiety is Self-induced

The crazy thing about anxiety is that, even though it can be triggered by your environment, it’s ultimately self-induced.

No one is pouring anxiety into your ear; it’s something your brain creates.

So why does it do that? Why would it make you experience such an unpleasant feeling?

Well, it’s because your brain senses something is wrong—a potential threat or a problem that needs solving. It rings the alarm because it wants you to know that something’s off.

The problem arises when this alarm system becomes too sensitive, triggering anxiety even when it’s not necessary.

Think about it, anxiety was adapted for life in the savanna.

If a lion jumped out of a particular type of bush, you’d become anxious whenever you saw that type of bush and would avoid it altogether.

But in modern life, the same anxiety system gets triggered when you have an important meeting or a paper to hand out.

Now people respond to different triggers, for me, a group of people staring at me is my equivalent of the lion jumping out of the bush.

That said, the lion isn’t real, there is no immediate danger, my mind is making me believe that there is. And this realization holds immense power.

Once you understand that anxiety isn’t a reaction to a real and immediate threat but rather an emotion triggered by a potential or imagined fear, you can start taking back control.

So, anxiety is self-induced—an emotion triggered from within. But what about the source of that anxiety? What about the lion? Should you do something about it?

That’s a good question. Sometimes, you might have had a little too much coffee and didn’t sleep well, and then you start to feel anxious in traffic, thinking about work. That’s okay.

In that case, the anxiety is likely stronger than it should be, and while you should acknowledge it, you also need to recognize that it’s probably amplified by your lack of sleep and the caffeine.

But in most instances, anxiety is actually useful, and you should listen to it. If you hate your job and feel like you’re wasting away years, waking up every morning feeling anxious, then it’s probably a sign that you need to change your situation.

That’s exactly how I felt when I started my first 9-to-5 job. I was anxious every day at work, stressed out most of the time until I realized that the anxiety was guiding me—and I needed to listen to it.

That’s what led me to quit that job and start my own business, helping people transform their physiques and lifestyles.

Being anxious means that you care. The opposite of anxiety isn’t feeling good, it’s indifference.

Yes, it’s unpleasant, but it’s also an indicator. An emotion that’s there to guide you, and it’s your duty to sit with it and wonder: what am I feeling anxious ?

Anxiety comes from within, and that’s also where you’ll find the key to overcoming the blockage.

Stop Avoiding

Don’t make the mistake of telling yourself that it’s fine, that things will get better, and that you can just live your life as it is without paying attention to the anxiety.

Avoiding anxiety only feeds it. The more you try to suppress it, the bigger it gets, and soon it will be too overwhelming to hide away.

Think about it, anxiety is like an alarm system. You can duct tape it all you want and close the door, but you’ll still hear the piercing sound from afar.

Now, depending on your personality and coping mechanisms, avoidance can take many forms.

For me, it was procrastination. And I’m not just talking about putting off doing the dishes—I’m talking about extreme procrastination, total avoidance. Not showing up to school, not getting out of bed, and not being able to playing video games.

This heavy procrastination cost me much more than just time. It destroys your sense of competence and self-confidence because you keep telling yourself you’ll do all these things, but you end up doing none of them. So your own brain just ends up not trusting your words.

I’ve seen friends take the route of self-destruction through self-medication, whether with alcohol or drugs.

They drank until they couldn’t feel the anxiety anymore, until the part of their brain that signals fear shut down.

This is the worst idea possible because not only are you heavily avoiding the issue, but the very things you use to escape it will become very problematic themselves.

If you use alcohol in social settings to escape the underlying anxiety you’re feeling, and you do that long enough, you’ll start to need that self-medication patch even outside of social contexts.

That’s when it becomes truly dangerous…

And if there’s one insight I’d like to share with you, it’s this:

Avoiding anxiety will never resolve the issue—it can only make it worse. But you probably already know that.

And that’s okay. I think ultimately, you have to be ready to put in the work required to start untangling your relationship with this emotion.

Now, one thing to be clear about: the opposite of shielding yourself from anxiety isn’t to act impulsively on it—don’t fall into that trap.

The solution is to treat anxiety like any other emotion. Listen to it closely and be genuinely willing to understand what your brain is trying to tell you.

This may be difficult to do right now, but the first step is just to be willing to do the work.

This willingness occurs on both a conscious and subconscious level. Remember, you can’t trick your own brain.

But if you do that, if you truly want to take a look at this negative feeling and listen to what the alarm says, things will get better very quickly.

Be Objective

You are not your thoughts. Just because you think about something doesn’t mean it’s true or that it’s going to happen.

This rule applies to anxiety too—just because you’re thinking about something doesn’t make the catastrophic scenario in your mind any more real.

When it comes to anxiety, I often find myself stuck in negative loops that seem endless.

You know, when something important is coming up, like a big decision, and you feel trapped in an anxiety loop.

You think about it every second of the day; it occupies all the space in your mind, making it impossible to concentrate. It’s omnipresent.

During these periods, you don’t sleep well, you don’t eat well, and your body is under a load of stress.

For a long time, I didn’t know how to respond to these loops—what to do or what not to do.

Now, I know that when this happens, what I need is distance.

I need to create a gap between myself and the emotion to avoid getting sucked into it and adopting it as my lens.

Learning how to distance yourself from your anxiety is the next step after acknowledging it.

It’s like a dance, you need to take a close look at it and then step back to see the full picture.

This can be tricky because it’s hard to differentiate yourself from your thoughts and emotions, but it’s also a skill, which means you can improve with practice.

You’ve got to learn how to challenge your judgment and be objective. You got to test the rationality of the thinking process.

Don’t believe that your thoughts define you or that they are universal, they’re not. They’re flawed and highly biased by your perception and memories.

So when you feel yourself getting stuck in an anxiety loop when you feel like there is a blockage and you can’t think straight anymore, take a step back.

Stop engaging frenetically, close the laptop for a moment, take a walk, lose yourself in a book, give your mind a break, go on a hike, and stop using your phone.

Expose yourself to the anxiety and be willing to listen to it but when it’s time, you also got to leave it alone for a little while and do something else, long enough to be able to adopt a new perspective.

And as always, trust the process.