Antidote or poison: The relationship between “lying flat” tendency and mental health

Abstract Although “lying flat” has become a new youth subculture phenomenon, it is unclear whether “lying flat” is an antidote or a poison for the youth's mental health. Here, we explored the effect of “lying flat” tendency on mental health using the cross‐sectional (Study 1a) and longitudinal designs (Study 1b) as well as the intervention design (Study 2). In Study 1a, we found that the youth's “lying flat” tendency was negatively correlated with their mental health. Importantly, cross‐lagged analyses (Study 1b) found that “lying flat” tendency negatively predicted mental health 1 month later, suggesting the temporal directionality between “lying flat” tendency and mental health. In Study 2, we sought to examine whether a longitudinal video intervention could promote the youth's mental health by reducing “lying flat” tendency. The results showed that the eight‐day inspirational video intervention significantly reduced the youth's “lying flat” tendency and promoted their mental health. Importantly, “lying flat” tendency mediated the relationship between the inspirational video intervention and mental health. Our study is the first to demonstrate the negatively predictive effect of the “lying flat” tendency on the youth's mental health and provides an economical, convenient, and effective intervention aimed at reducing the “lying flat” tendency to promote the youth's mental health.