{"id":481273,"date":"2026-02-21T05:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T05:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/481273\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T05:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T05:12:09","slug":"why-anxiety-in-your-30s-and-40s-can-feel-worse-according-to-a-licensed-therapist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/481273\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Anxiety in Your 30s and 40s Can Feel Worse, According to a Licensed Therapist"},"content":{"rendered":"

Your 30s<\/a> and 40s are what some would consider the best years of your life. You\u2019re no longer \u201cfiguring it out,\u201d but you aren\u2019t \u201cold\u201d by society\u2019s ageist standards<\/a> either. It should be a sweet spot\u2014right? But despite the illusion of stability and security, it\u2019s also common for anxiety and self-doubt to worsen during your most \u201cput-together\u201d decades, research shows.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s this expectation from society that by this time, you have a career path. You get married. You have children,\u201d Kristen Jacobsen, LCPC<\/a>, owner of Cathartic Space Counseling in Chicago and author of Unpacked: How to Detach From the Subconscious Beliefs That Are Sabotaging Your Life<\/a>, tells SELF. Therefore, if you\u2019re 40 and still questioning who you are, it can feel as if you\u2019re \u201cbehind.\u201d<\/p>\n

But even for those who have checked these boxes, anxiety in your 30s can still hit hard, Jacobsen says: At this stage in life, every decision can feel high-stakes and seemingly permanent\u2014like there\u2019s less room to experiment, no space to take risks and \u201cfail<\/a>,\u201d and fewer opportunities to pivot.<\/p>\n

While the roadmap for adulthood is less rigid today (with people marrying later, switching careers more often, and redefining what \u201cstability\u201d even means), the pressure for many hasn\u2019t disappeared. In fact, it\u2019s just become more internalized, Jacobsen points out\u2014which doesn\u2019t just cause catastrophizing: It can also make you more sensitive to how others see you.<\/p>\n

Why criticism hits harder in your 30s and 40s<\/p>\n

When you were younger, you might have guessed that by your 30s and 40s, you\u2019d be too \u201cgrown up\u201d to care about others\u2019 petty judgments. Jacobsen says she sees otherwise in her practice. \u201cI work with a lot of clients [in this age range],\u201d she says. \u201cAnd if they haven\u2019t met certain \u2018milestones,\u2019 they spiral over even small questions like, \u2018Oh, are you dating?\u2019 \u2018Are you planning on having kids soon?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of this is internalized: if you believe you\u2019re not established, even well-meaning comments about your job, family, or life choices can seem like confirmation from others that you\u2019re not measuring up.<\/p>\n

This sensitivity can be especially intense for new moms<\/a>\u2014many of whom, of course, are in their 30s and 40s. \u201cThey experience something called \u2018matrescense,\u2019 a profound identity shift similar to what we go through during puberty in adolescence,\u201d Jacobsen explains. \u201cWhen someone becomes a mother for the first time, they no longer have a solid foundation of who they are,\u201d which can make outside opinions land harder. That\u2019s why a casual comment about feeding choices, sleep routines, or returning to work doesn\u2019t always register as neutral or helpful, but rather as an attack for parenting \u201cwrong.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your 30s and 40s are what some would consider the best years of your life. You\u2019re no longer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481274,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[2763,97,259,260],"class_list":["post-481273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-anxiety","tag-health","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}