This feeling between depressed and flourishing lies a feeling of just, blah. The global pandemic heightened this feeling for a lot of people and in this 2-part series we’re using science to describe this feeling and why we’re feeling it. Then, we’ll look at an antidote to moving past this feeling and into what scientists call flow.   

Transcript:

Welcome to Everyday Happiness where we create lasting happiness, in 2 minutes a day,  through my signature method of Intentional Margins® (creating harmony between your to-dos and your priorities), happiness science, and musings about life. 

I'm your host Katie Jefcoat and I read this article by Adam Grant on Languishing. It went viral in the height of the pandemic, I think because so many people could relate.  And it got me thinking again about this idea of languishing.

Adam Grant says languishing is the middle between depression and flourishing.  He says “Languishing dulls your motivation, disrupts your ability to focus, and triples the odds that you’ll cut back on work. It appears to be more common than major depression — and in some ways it may be a bigger risk factor for mental illness.”  

Well this seems like there is no doubt a correlation between languishing and happiness.  Sometimes we just feel ho-hum, blah, just blah.  And now we have a word for that, it’s called languishing.  

Have you felt over the past 18 months that you’ve been or had times when you were languishing?  I certainly have.  

Look, we can’t be happy every moment of every day, our other emotions would be neglected.  There is a reason we have so many emotions - we are well-rounded and complex humans.  

Grant points out that “Part of the danger [with languishing] is that when you’re languishing, you might not notice the dulling of delight or the dwindling of drive.”  

So tomorrow we are going to get into what the antidote for languishing might be. 

Until next time. 

Inspired by this article in the New York Times, There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing.

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