Languishing – what is it and why are we suffering from it?
How to move to a free, flourishing mindset
Text: Puja Disha Bharwani
As we move from the pandemic to the endemic stage, we need to be mentally fit and have the stamina to deal with the effects of the past year for the long haul. Even though vaccines are being rolled out — and in Singapore, the vaccination pace has increased — there is still a long way to go. It will be a while before we see freedom of movement and the concept of certainty like we used to know.
Psychologists generally categorise mental health as two sides of a spectrum — depression on one end and flourishing on the other. Flourishing is defined as the peak of well-being. “You have a strong sense of meaning, mastery, and mattering to others. Depression is the valley of ill-being: You feel despondent, drained, and worthless.”
So where does the feeling we are all feeling now fall? That blah, heavyish feeling which makes you stay in bed a little longer, or you find yourself submerged in work, exercise, cleaning and really anything to avoid dealing with reality. According to psychologist Adam Grant, the feeling is called ‘languishing’, a term coined by a sociologist named Corey Keyes.
“Languishing is a sense of stagnation and emptiness. It feels as if you’re muddling through your days, looking at your life through a foggy windshield. And it might be the dominant emotion of 2021,” says Grant, whose article about the topic in the New York Times went viral.
So, what can we actually do about this feeling that prevents us from being our optimal selves and is bringing a sense of inertia into life? How can we turn languish into flourish?
Identify & assess what gives you energy
Identify what lifts you up, even if it’s something small — something as simple as a cup of tea, dark chocolate, coffee or a stretch. Think of this as an effective diagnostic tool to enable and energise yourself, to wake up and live life with intentional actions that you know have a positive impact. It also boils down to the simple fact of taking care of yourself first.
Have a purpose & clear goals
There is so much that has been said about having a sense of purpose in life. Essentially, a sense of purpose is the feeling you get from having goals and plans that steer you in the right direction and add meaning to life. It is about being engaged with life in productive ways — in work, preparing or organising a meal or just getting something done on your daily to-do list. For me, it also draws parallels to exercise and my motivation behind it. Exercise gives me structure and a feeling of completing a daily goal once I finish what I had tasked myself to do. This, in addition to the endorphins that are released after exercise, makes it doubly rewarding.
Hit Re-set
Envision who you want to be coming out of this endemic and know that, like everything else, it's a process that will take time. There can be very positive outcomes from any crisis, as history has shown, and nobody will be quite the same after this experience.
COVID flipped our lives upside down and has given us a chance to rethink many things and ask ourselves why we do what we do. We have also seen a lot happening around us this year — digital acceleration, unemployment, businesses going under, protests, and the redistribution of power. All this taking place in parallel with the pandemic has revealed systemic issues that desperately need to be addressed. Why not take this chance to reassess and really think about your place in this world and life, and change the ways you have been doing things to build a new, better you? It can start small from walking daily, not using plastic, eating more meals at home with your family, or just creating proper boundaries in life for intentional actions.
Inner noise-cancelling headsets
There is so much noise around us — the bombardment of content and non-stop communication and stimulation out there can get overwhelming. We need to learn to have our own inner noise-cancelling headsets and be clear of what we stand for, what we want, and channel our time and energy accordingly. If that means a technology or content fast, curating the type of content you consume, or allocating specific times for viewing social media (read Instagram stories), you should make an effort to do that. Much of the noise and distractions we experience comes from the inside, so we need a two-pronged approach to fight outer and inner noise.
Build mental fitness
What does mental fitness actually mean?
In LeBron James’ series on the meditation and mindfulness app Calm called Train Your Mind, he talks about the importance of presence in mental fitness when working on optimising your mind.
“Your attention should be locked and you should be aware of your surroundings. One should be calm and composed. Your mind should be what’s on your mind when you are trying to focus.”
Mental fitness trains the mind and prepares you mentally, emotionally, creates discipline, and moves above the noise. Some ways to improve your mental and brain fitness are games, meditation, eating good fats, and my favourite, reading something different. I am currently reading The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel. It is a book everyone should own and read — he writes about finance in a clear, concise way and says things that have not been explained before with great real-life examples. It is applicable to us all.
“Few topics offer a more powerful magnifying glass that helps explain why people behave the way they do than money. It is one of the greatest shows on earth.”
