How to BANISH FEELING 'BLAH'

You're not depressed, but neither are you excited by life. So what can you do about it?

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Does the noise 'meh' sum up how you've been feeling lately? Or maybe you've recently been thinking, 'Is this it?' The trouble with reaching midlife is there's often a natural pause. Life's pace has likely slowed since those whirlwind decades when buying houses, getting married, climbing the career ladder and having children - to name a few - consumed all your focus and energy. While you may now have more free time, a feeling of being directionless can easily creep in.

There's a name for this lacklustre feeling - anhedonia. It's described as the opposite of hedonism and is defined as 'losing the ability to get pleasure from the things you used to enjoy'. The trouble is, when you seemingly have everything you need in life, you might feel ungrateful or guilty to admit to feeling a bit blah, so it's often not talked about.

The word still needs a lot more exposure, says Tanith Carey, author of Feeling 'Blah'? Why Life Feels Joyless and How to Recapture its Highs (£12.99, PB, Welbeck). 'And it especially needs to be understood by women in midlife because we're particularly susceptible to it.'

Defining joy

Although feeling 'meh' is often a symptom of depression, Tanith reveals you don't need to be depressed to feel anhedonic. 'You could be ticking along nicely, with everything you need, except the mental bandwidth to enjoy it,' she explains. 'The feeling sums up that grey area between being happy and being depressed.'