Abstract: The midlife low is a broader concept than the midlife crisis andseems to be intimately connected to being human (and perhaps even tobeing animal). This article briefly discusses literature which finds midlifelows in survey data. In addition, reasons why midlife lows exist are putforward and discussed. The evidence provided is interdisciplinary, oftenpresented in literature from the field of psychotherapy which has, attimes, heavily concerned itself with the topic. Given that the misery ofmidlife can be substantial, efforts to understand the phenomenon andhow it might be mitigated seem to be worthwhile. In pursuit of this aim,the article concludes with some research questions which emerge fromthe previous discussion and are testable with current datasets, butcurrently remain unresolved.Key words: middle age, midlife, development, ageing, wellbeing