There's been a lot of pressure on us adults these past few years: working from home, homeschooling, losing or changing jobs and navigating the practical realities of changing COVID-19 traffic lights.
"We've been living for the past two years with unrelenting stress. Our bodies are not designed for that," psychiatrist Hinemoa Elder tells Newshub Investigates.
"It's had a huge effect in terms of relationships," clinical psychologist Jacqui Maguire said.
"I swear I thought the whole country was about to just combust with burnout," said human resources professor Jarrod Haar.
For some of us, it's prompted a 'COVID life crisis', whether that be making major life changes or just feeling stuck in a rut.
Now, many of us are making major life changes. Misha Gildenberger quit her advertising job in Auckland, moved to Papamoa and set up a dog training business.
"I was just like, 'Oh, my God. Do you actually want to stay in this job or do I want to chase my dream?' And my dream was to work with dogs," she said.
What is happening to us?
Mentally, many of us are still feeling like crap - including Newshub national correspondent Patrick Gower.
"Like a lot of people our age I've just had that feeling like I'm not going anywhere [and] like nothing's happening," Gower tells physiotherapist and health consultant Nigel Beach. "How can I snap out of this?" asked Gower.
"How you're feeling right now… is entirely logical," said Beach.
"What we need to do is do some things which are going to reset that nervous system."
Maguire said languishing was prevalent since the pandemic began.
"The definition from the researcher who coined the term would say it's that, 'You're feeling empty. You're leading a life of stagnation.' Or in my terms, you are 'meh.'"
Divorce coach Bridgette Jackson said relationships are languishing too.
"I would think that in terms of my business, there has been a 40 percent increase in people separating.
"I've had a lot of people coming to me saying, 'Bridgette, we want to separate but can you help us to actually be able to live together?' Whether that's upstairs and downstairs or obviously in the same house together, what are the roles and the boundaries for people?
"When third parties come into play… what is that going to look like? We need to avoid a car crash."
Then there's our work life - something Haar is an expert on.
"I've heard somebody who had burnout talk about opening up a laptop, putting their hand on a mouse and literally going, 'Oh, I don't know how that thing works.' And then realised - 'I've got a major problem and I need to go see a GP,'" Haar said.
So, how do we break out of it?
Dr Elder said there is a Māori mental health model - Te whare tapa whā - that can help.
"It's a mind picture," she said. "It's about a house, a building with four walls.
"The tinana, the hinengaro, te whanau, te wairua… are all in these separate compartments. But of course, to make a house, to make a whare, they all have to work together.
"And we know that if your house, if your building, if your structure doesn't have a harmony of those four aspects - it's not going to be stable."
Improving "taha tinana" - physical health - does not need to be hard.
"Get outside every day being in nature for 20 minutes drops your cortisol levels by 16 percent," Maguire said. "Cortisol is that stress hormone."
Working on "taha hinengaro" - psychological health - can be simple too.
"What are the things that make you laugh and that bring you joy?
"Are you someone that loves cooking? Do that, mindfully, [and] enjoy it," Maguire added.
"Do you enjoy playing the piano? Do you like, like me, snuggling in bed and writing stories to your kids at night?"
"Taha wairua" - spiritual health - does not need to be religious.
"I often describe it as the 'vibe', our gut, our sense of intuition," Dr Elder said.
And "Taha whānau" - our social wellbeing - is all about connections.
"Focus on the people that are important to you," Maguire said. "If you've got people in your surrounding, in your city that you're wanting to nurture that relationship, get out and do something that you haven't done before."
Beach is a rehab expert who works with top-level sportspeople including Blackcaps and All Blacks. He said sometimes our body needs a reset to break the mental malaise - and his version of that involves cold water.
"We can go into this winter sea out here and we can embrace it, and we can come out and we would have elevated our dopamine," Beach said. "We would have elevated our metabolic rate by up to 90 percent, we would have elevated our adrenaline, our noradrenaline - things that bring back a real clarity into us."
But how you stop languishing, end that "COVID-life crisis” and rebuild your "Te Whare Tapa Whā" is up to you - and maybe that means going big with a major change.
Or maybe the answer is in our own past.
"I think people have to look at their past and go, what has helped you - then add any clues to what you could add back in now," Maguire said.
Watch Newshub Investigates: Generation COVID in full on ThreeNow.
