Redeemed Mental Health Blog

10 Signs of Depression in Your Young Adult

Updated July 19, 2026
Reviewed by Dr. Andrea Wagner, Chief Clinician and Psychologist
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10 Signs of Depression in Your Young Adult

Depression is a normal fact of life for many of us. In fact, today, an estimated 21.5 million people experienced a major depressive episode or depression in the last year. For most of us, the age of mental health disorder onset is between 12 and 18, with 4.5 million youth aged 12-17 also experiencing depressive episodes in the same year. But, depression is highest for young adults, aged 18-25, with 6 million individuals, or 17.5% of all people of that age category. This means that young adults are especially vulnerable to depression.

While this relates to a large number of factors including high workloads, uncertain futures, covid-19 disruption, economic uncertainty, genetics, and social pressure – our youngest adults are also our most vulnerable. If you suspect that a young adult in your life is struggling, it’s important to pay attention, to make spaces to talk, and to look into getting help together.

The following 10 signs of depression in young adults will get you started.

Key points

Persistent Sadness or Low Mood

Prolonged sadness, low mood, or apathy are a core symptom of depression and are present in almost all people with depression. This might result in a young adult experiencing prolonged low mood or being bummed out for long periods of time.

What it looks like: Feeling down or persistent low mood can be difficult to spot from the outside so often, you’ll have to talk to your loved one. They also might not have words to say, “My mood is low” or “I’m just bummed out all the time” or “I feel depressed” and might instead say things like “I just feel off” “I’m having a bad month” or “I just don’t have any energy”. Especially for men, talking about mental health tends to be translated into physical symptoms, which can make it harder to figure out what’s going on.

Practical next steps

Loss of Interest in Activities

Anhedonia, or loss of interest in things you previously enjoyed, is one of the most common symptoms of depression. Often, this means that you’re struggling with your brain regulating the uptake of serotonin and dopamine, meaning you simply don’t experience things like you used to. For example, instead of feeling excitement and interest in doing something you just feel nothing and after doing something, you also feel nothing because you’re not getting the reward of feeling good about interactions.

What it looks like: Young adults experiencing anhedonia might withdraw and stop doing things. They might drop out of sports or chess clubs, they might spend less time with family, they might do less with partners. Instead, they’ll likely dump time into high-reward/low-energy activities like phone games, alcohol or drugs, or binging food/sugary drinks.

How Redeemed can help

Sleep Disturbances

People struggling with depression are very likely to have problems with sleeping, which can mean sleeping too much or not enough. In young adults, this most frequently results in sleeping too much paired with difficulty falling asleep. Often that results from sleeping too late, being tired all day, and then staying up too late in an attempt to regain control over the day – resulting in a negative reinforcing pattern of poor sleep. In addition, poor sleep worsens depression by disrupting rhythms and disrupting the brain’s ability to heal.

What it looks like: Young adults with depression are very likely to sleep in and have trouble waking up, which can result in missed classes, being late for work, and all-day fatigue. At the same time, they are unlikely to go to bed on time and are instead more likely to take frequent naps or to fall asleep in vehicles. Still, they will be tired even if they go to bed on time and get the right amount of sleep.

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