The Big Issue Magazine

How to flourish

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t feel like I have a full-on depression, but there’s nothing that brings me joy either. I’m just going through the motions every day.”

Does this sound familiar? Not flourishing, not depressed, but drifting along somewhere in-between? After the shock and trauma of 2020, the long- haul effect of the pandemic has caught up with us in the form of something very few had heard of until now – ‘languishing.’

This article will explain what languishing is and why it’s happening, then give practical ways in which you can shift yourself out of this state.

WHAT IS LANGUISHING?

The term was first used by sociologist Corey Keyes in 2002, in a paper exploring mental health (flourishing) or its absence (languishing). It was defi ned as the antithesis of flourishing at that time, which is interesting in that the economic crash of 2008

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