Feeling a bit ‘meh’ lately? You might be languishing.
And yes, there is a term for it
“How are you?” A close friend of mine recently asked.
Even though I’m usually a pretty optimistic person, who’s very easily entertained by almost anything and everything, I found myself responding with “meh, I don’t know, I guess I’m alright”
For the first time in several years, I no longer had a morning routine or any routine, for that matter.
I was spending my weekend in bed binge-watching Netflix until I felt disgusting and my brain was scattered — it was taking me a lot longer than usual to get my usual work done.
But, I knew I wasn’t depressed — I had plans and was still very hopeful about the future.
My friend kept suggesting that maybe I was burnt out — but I haven’t been working for more than 30hrs each week since earlier this year and I wasn’t necessarily exhausted or out of energy.
Yet, I found myself in an unpleasant state: unmotivated, zapped of all creativity, and feeling aimless in my life — and I was confused.
In my head, I was in a rut and I desperately wanted to get out of it.
I was going down the Google rabbit hole, searching for ways to get out of a rut, trying to figure out how to be more focused and productive when I found an article from Adam Grant — “Feeling Blah During the Pandemic? It’s called Languishing”
And that article turned out to be the solution that I was searching for, or so I think.
So, what is languishing?
Languishing, as Adam Grant would say, is the “neglected middle child of mental health”. It was a term coined by the sociologist Corey Keyes when he realized that not all people who are not depressed aren’t necessarily flourishing.
Even though we tend to look at the world in a black and white way, our world is quite nuanced and it’s the same with mental health.
Therefore, Psychologists think about mental health on a spectrum — from depressed to flourishing.
You would be considered as flourishing when your mental health and wellbeing are at their peak and you would be considered depressed when your mental health and wellbeing are at an all-time low aka in the valley of ill-being.
So where on this spectrum does languishing fall into?
Languishing is not necessarily the presence of mental illness but it’s the absence of mental wellbeing.
You might not have the symptoms of a crippling mental illness but you are quite aware that you are not the picture-perfect definition of mental well-being either.
Instead, you are stuck in the middle.
You know you’re not functioning at your full capacity. Your motivation is tanking and your once manageable workload now seems more demanding than ever.
Furthermore, languishing tends to be an absence of emotion making it harder to notice.
It’s a lingering emotional state that doesn’t have the urgency or intensity of a mental illness like depression and this can mean that unlike with depression very few people will end up addressing it because even you are immune to your suffering.
However, Corey Keyes’s research has also shown that the people most likely to experience major depression and anxiety disorders in the next decade are not the people who have symptoms of anxiety or depression but rather the people who are languishing right now.
So, how do we address it?
Since languishing is a lingering mental state with low urgency and intensity — it can be hard to identify.
However, taking the time to identify and name what you’re feeling can be the first step toward addressing the issue.
Through naming a feeling and recognizing it, you are making it easier for yourself to overcome it each time you find yourself in a similar state.
Yes, it can be a unique experience each time you experience these states, but the psychological state itself will still be familiar.
I.e. If you’ve felt depressed or anxious in the past you can recognize that feeling if it creeps back in and navigate the situation better by thinking back to what helped you get out of that state in the past. This gives you the ability to take action and be proactive about doing things that you know will make things better.
Therefore, by recognizing and naming the emotional state as languishing you are also able to do the same with languishing.
So, what can you do to get out of it?
It’s simple. Get into a state of flow.
According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, flow is a concept describing those moments when you’re completely absorbed in a challenging but doable task. Sometimes it can even feel as if you’ve lost track of time and space.
In my case, writing has always been what got me into a state of flow. For you, this could be playing a game of football with your friends, diving deep into a research paper, gardening, or even reading a fiction book that you feel fully immersed in.
However, also you have to make sure that the task that you choose reaches for mastery, requires mindfulness, and matters to you as an individual.
According to Adam Grant, who brought languishing to light in 2021, in his NYT article, mastery is necessary because while languishing is a form of stagnation, mastery is its opposite — its forward movement.
By finding tasks that are manageable but difficult you can create small wins that will in turn help you become more self-confident.
Mindfulness helps with doing interrupted work which in turn helps you to block out time for each type of task and be more focused on your work.
And doing work that matters, work where you feel as if you contribute to others can bring back that sense of direction and fulfillment.
Remember, the key here is not to force yourself to do things you dislike to stop languishing but rather to do something enjoyable but not too easy to help you get into a state of flow that will help you feel better.
At the end of the day, I am thankful for having a term to identify my current state of mind, and realize the importance of knowing that ‘not depressed’ does not automatically mean ‘not struggling’.
But, I do wonder if it’s okay to think of anything other than ‘flourishing’ as something that needs fixing?
I mean, are we truly meant to flourish at all times? — even during difficult circumstances, or is it yet another ridiculous expectation that society has put on us?
I honestly don’t know for sure — what do you think?
