Languishing is a lot more than just feeling meh or blah, it's the absence of a lot of the good things that go into making life meaningful, says sociologist Dr Corey Keyes.
“Our sense of purpose is gone, our sense of contribution to our community or society is absent, we don't have a feeling of integration or belongingness.
“And among other things we might not be very accepting of other people or ourselves or feel like we're growing,” he told Jesse Mulligan.
Photo: RNZ/Vinay Ranchhod
Keyes explains what it is, and how to vanquish it, in his new book, Languishing: How to Feel Alive Again in a World That Wears Us Down.
Languishing can be a perfectly normal reaction to life’s vicissitudes, he says.
“But if you stay there too long, it becomes pathological.”
He lists in the book 13 reasons why languishing - and flourishing, its positive opposite - should be taken seriously.
“Languishing puts you at greater risk of developing things like depression and anxiety, even PTSD.
“Later in life languishing has been associated with premature mortality, and flourishing protects you against all of those things, and then some,” he says.
He cites a study that compared people over three weeks every day and asked them what kinds of stress they experienced.
‘It didn't matter whether they were flourishing or languishing, they experienced the same amount of stress. Roughly 84 percent of those three weeks, they had stress in those days,” he says.
People who were flourishing, did not experience less stress than their languishing counterparts, he says.
“But here's the kicker. When you experience that stress, flourishing people at the end of the day, it doesn't get under their skin. Their negative mood is far less as a result of experiencing stress that day then compared to those who are languishing.
Corey Keyes Photo: Penguin Random House
“So, if you're languishing and you experience that same stress as somebody who's flourishing experiences, that languishing allows that stress to create a far more negative mood.”
The traditional definition of mental healthiness is the absence of mental illness, a definition he believes is wrong.
“That's the single continuum model that we have been labouring under for many years.
“But it's wrong, because the absence of mental illness does not mean that everyone's mentally healthy, or what I call flourishing, you can land in between, which is languishing.”
The tendency to languish or flourish is just as inheritable as is depression or anxiety, he says.
“But less than half of the genes associated with flourishing are shared in common with the genes for things like depression.
“That means that you can be free of the risk genetically for depression, but it doesn't mean you've necessarily inherited the potential to flourish genetically.
Languishing book cover Photo: supplied
“But by the same token, just because you've inherited a high genetic risk for depression, doesn't mean you didn't also inherit a very high genetic potential to flourish.”
The key to a flourishing life is to prioritise functioning well in the world over personal happiness, he believes.
“When you're happy without functioning well it's like every day you're eating a diet that's not nutritious and or healthy for you, but it tastes really good.”
There are “five vitamins of flourishing,” he says, which comes from a peer reviewed study he was involved in.
“What they found were that people who are flourishing, did more of the following five things. They engaged in some form of helping others.
“They engaged in more play or active leisure, they engaged in more spirituality or religious activities. They engaged in more activities where they were learning something new, just for the sake of personal growth. And they engaged in more activities where they connected meaningfully around warmth, trust and belonging.”
Even if you are mentally healthy, these are good traits to weave into your life, he says.
“Just because you're mentally healthy doesn't mean you should stop doing the five vitamins. It should become a part of your routine, a regular part of your daily or weekly life.”
