Essentially, homesickness is a form of anxiety or emotional distress that one may experience as a result of feeling detached or disconnected from familiar people, places and ones regular routine. Homesickness is most commonly associated from being away from, and missing, ones' home but there are actually a number of different factors that can cause a person to feel homesick. These factors can range from being cut off from your support system (family or friends), feeling lonely, feeling a lack of control on a situation around you, difficult adapting to a new environment or culture, and so on. Even if you may not have experienced homesickness whilst travelling, it is more than likely you have experienced a degree of it during the ever present pandemic.
This article provides suggestions and advice on how to deal with homesickness, some of which are applicable to both "everyday" life and for living abroad.
Keep in touch with home, but not too much!
By all means, have that video call with your family members, check in with friends via text message, send gifts or cards home, but try not to overwhelm yourself with it. Try and create a new relationship with the people at home than the one that you had previously. That's not to say to ignore them or distance yourself from them, but more to try and establish an understanding that you have relocated or that everyday life is not the same as it was before, and that communication with familiars will change. Try not to cling to the comfort of your home life. Find happiness in the new. It may be challenging, but it will benefit your mindset greatly.
Don't torment yourself with social media - take a break!
Fear of missing out (or "FOMO") is a common thing for many of us. It doesn't help that most people broadcast everything that they do on various social media platforms for the whole online world to see. This makes it very easy for us to see exactly what people at home are up to and feel like we are missing out.
On a similar vein, it is also very easy to compare yourself to other people online and, if you're anything like me, a person can easily start obsessively comparing themselves to others "idealistic" lifestyles and wonder "why is my life not like that?" Here's a likely reason - it's because their lives are probably not like that either. Try to remember that the majority of people only show the "best" versions of themselves and their day to day lives. Very rarely will someone post something negative about themselves, because who would want to show that off to the online world? I know that I myself are guilty of this.
If you find that you are comparing yourselves to others or are constantly checking in on what people at home are doing and feeling down for not being able to partake - deactivate your social media account/s. It doesn't have to be forever, but a temporary break from the constant reminds of home or unrealistic happy lifestyles is a healthy thing.
Create/Keep up your routine!
I have learnt, particularly during lock-down, is that keeping to a routine is key to diminishing homesickness. For me, living in a different country during a pandemic made my homesickness sky rocket due to having little else to occupy my mind. Keeping up some form of routine really helped me with that. For instance, just getting up at a "reasonable" hour (any time before 10 am) and doing a 10 minute YouTube video of a yoga morning stretch every day helped me keep motivated to do other things around the house and not dwell too much on missing home.
Make your new home just that - a home!
Adding the odd touches from your old home to your new home is a good start; perhaps a old favourite throw blanket on the bed or your favourite mug to the cupboard. However, also try thinking of actively establishing the country/town/area that you've moved to in to more than just a new location. Try and reach out and make acquaintances and friends with people around you (colleagues, neighbours, classmates etc) - be it virtually or in person. How about organising a cultural cooking class where each person makes a dish from their native country? Or a language exchange? All this are steps in building more of a social life in the community that you are in which, in my opinion, helps to reduce the feelings of homesickness for friends from home.
Remember: It's okay not to be okay.
Everyone likes to remind others to try and keep a positive mind set (and that's great!) but also remember that it is okay to feel down sometimes. Physical health is, of course, important but be sure to look after your mental health, as well. As much as it is good to challenge yourself and do new things, if you don't feel up to a language exchange quite yet, for example, okay, try again next week. Do things at your own pace. Communicate with people around you whom your trust, or speak to friends and family at home if you are struggling. The advice I've put forward in this article is just that: advice. If you have tried everything I've suggested and you are still struggling with homesickness, that's okay. Everyone manages situations differently. Change is tough. Don't be too hard on yourself.
Do you have any advice of your own that you'd like to share? Comment below, I'd love to hear from you!
God missing people is so hard, I hope you are doing ok? ❤️♥️