When You Miss That Home Feeling
Home truly is a feeling, it’s comfort and safety, it’s familiarity and it’s what you know. When you go through a life transition such as going away to college, you will be leaving all of that comfort, safety, and familiarity behind and forced to find it in a new place, which could be the very opposite of all that you have come to know and love from your home. This article will focus on homesickness from a college perspective with 25 tips on how to beat homesickness.
What Does It Mean To Be Homesick
Most people will at some point in their life get that feeling of homesickness and it’s important to note that it can happen even in circumstances where you don’t love home and have been looking forward to breaking free from your parents or other home life constraints. Feeling homesick is about a loss of familiarity, and familiarity even in less than ideal circumstances creates safety.
When you know what to expect, you know how to keep yourself safe. When you are not familiar with an environment, you won’t be able to do that as easily. Safety comes in all shapes and sizes, social, emotional, and physical. For example, social safety is being familiar with the social scene and the players, knowing if it’s ok to make a joke, and the tone you might need to take. Or it could be around physical safety, like knowing the transportation system around campus, the routes, and if you could get stuck somewhere.
Life transitions bring about feelings of loss and worry. Worry that you will feel out of place or won’t fit in and loss of the comfort and familiarity you have just left. Since college is one of the biggest transitions a person will make in their life, it is normal to go through bouts of homesickness. The move from being a high school student to a college student, especially if you leave home for college will mark that transition in a much bigger way which will undoubtedly bring about feelings of homesickness.
Homesickness is a lot like a grief process, where you go through different ups and downs, and sometimes you will feel like you have moved past that stage, and then bam, you get smacked with another wave of longing for your old friends, neighbors, and the local stores you used to frequent. You see, it can be about people and your pets but it doesn’t have to be, it is more about the feelings associated with space and time.
Deciphering Depression and Anxiety From Being Homesick
It could be hard to distinguish homesickness from depression or anxiety as there are similarities and overlap. The reason this happens is that you are biologically programmed to survive, which means that when there is something unfamiliar (read unsafe), your automatic fight, flight, or freeze response kicks in which is designed to help you survive that unsafe situation and anxiety is in part, an energizing physiological response to protect you from danger.
Depression is a slowing down of your body’s system and often kicks in when grieving or experiencing feelings of loneliness and mismatched with your environment, which is certainly a part of what is happening when homesick. The slowing down can also be protective in that it is preserving energy, makes you want to retreat from socializing a little more, sleep a little more, and so on.
When feeling symptoms of depression and anxiety during a transition, it is important to give yourself time to acclimate and settle into your new surrounding. If symptoms such as prolonged sadness, difficulty sleeping, significant change in appetite, difficulty being with other people, increased anxiety, panic attacks, or thoughts about dying and death become prominent, it would be good to speak with someone in your campus counseling center.
If you have been dealing with mental health challenges before leaving home, then it will be all the more important to make sure that you are monitoring your symptoms and getting the support you need to make the transition from home to school. The great thing about college is that you are not alone and there are lots of great resources there for you, you are paying for them after all so use them and make college the best it can be!
For The International Students
If you are studying abroad, then chances are you will be in a much more foreign environment, possibly struggling with new or developing language skills, and find yourself having to embrace, of course, all that you love about a culture, but all that maybe you could do without. And hopefully, the things you love won’t be overshadowed by the things you don’t love, you probably chose your location for a reason, so there is that, however getting there and navigating a new country and culture for a period of a few months to years even, does present with its own unique set of challenges when it comes to settling in and getting acquainted with your new temporary home.
All of the strategies below are of course relevant for international students, however, it might also be really important to find other students who are from your home country and with whom you share your native language. Making these connections is important but don’t forget to also get out there and mingle with the broader community. You probably chose to study where you are, in part for the cultural and language immersion, so this is your time to get out there and embrace something new and very cool.
As someone who has studied abroad and also found themselves working and living in several different countries in South and Central America as well as Europe, I know the challenges of breaking through those lonely and sometimes frightening feelings despite the fact that you might have even sought out these experiences, which doesn’t always make it that much easier. Know that it will be hard but it will get easier, the more you get to know people and find your footing, get comfortable with the language the easier it will get and the rewards for those challenges will be that much better.
25 Tips To Beat Homesickness
Keep in mind that to beat homesickness you need to be able to create a home away from home kind of feeling. This means that you will need to establish a new familiarity and find ways to connect with your new surroundings. These 25 tips below are ways that you can begin to tackle the problem and create connections to your new environment. Also remember that just because you like your new home, does not diminish your connection to home and what you miss, that will always be there 😊
- Identify what you miss from home – can you put your finger on some of those things that you love and miss from home? Is it connected to the place, smell, taste or people? Make a list and think about how you might be able to find some of what you are missing in your new home.
- Give yourself permission – Permission to miss home and feel the homesickness is a good thing. Too often we waste a lot of time telling ourselves that we shouldn’t feel a certain way which in the end just prolongs the misery 😉… by giving yourself permission you will be able to work through the negative feelings and fight off the automatic flight, flight or freeze response.
- Create a challenge for yourself – depending on where you are, there is a good chance that there is something unique about your university or the city/town in which it is home, are you in an area with a lot of outdoor activity? or city life offers some different and interesting museums, cafes and restaurants? Maybe part of getting a lay of the land is to scope out some peaks you want to bag or hills you want to ski, cafes you want to hit, and so on… maybe this is something you could get some friends to join you on.
- Find your peeps – to create familiarity and therefore safety, you need to connect with a community of people with who you feel comfortable, this will be an essential component to feeling more familiar and to help you beat homesickness.
- Connect with home, but in measured doses – it’s good to call home or even visit every so often for holiday weekends, but do your best to not make it more than that. To give yourself time to acclimate, you need just that, time on campus.
- Get support – Lean on your friends, they will likely be able to relate to how you feel. If you have a therapist from home, maybe you would be able to continue seeing them? And as I mentioned above, you have a wealth of resources at your disposal, use them and make sure you know where and what mental health resources are available to you.
- Keep the big picture in mind – Remember that you are there to experience life and get an education. All of those experiences are part of your education in life… whatever it is, it’s ok… life is hard sometimes… but happy moments are on the horizon!
- Don’t be ‘A Stranger in a Strange Land’ – Get to know your community, your surroundings and before long it won’t be so strange. That is after all part of the fun of being in a new place, exploring and getting to know something new and different.
- Build meaningful relationships – spend time with people in whatever capacity makes sense for you, be open to getting to know new people, and try to go out of your way to spend time with them. It might not always be your instinct but if you can build meaningful relationships you will begin to make the transition from home to college and it will be a lot more enjoyable.
- Spend time in your department – this is another way to build community through the commonality of a shared pursuit or career interest. You will get to know your professors better as well as your fellow students. Many people find a second home for themselves in their departments.
- Volunteer – for sure a good way to connect with people in a new way and give back. This is one of the best ways to work through depression and anxiety as well.
- Identify your sources of comfort – what is it that makes you feel comfortable and at home? Is it possible to find that in your new home?
- Build in a routine – routine helps you to find that familiarity, find a spot that you enjoy and if you can build it into your daily or frequent activities it will be part of what feels good and safe, your home away from home.
- Maintain your self-care – to beat homesickness, just like any other mental health issue, means taking care of yourself. Whatever you do to take care of yourself at home, be it working out, healthy diet choices or treating yourself to a massage or fresh haircut, make sure that you continue to build this into your life, and maybe there will be ways to expand on that and bring new friends into the mix.
- Stay active – activity and exercise is one of the best ways to work through depression, anxiety, and beat homesickness which very often coincides with homesickness. When in doubt go for a walk or do something that keeps you moving, trust me, at the end of it, you will feel better.
- Find your mantra – a favorite of mine is “this too shall pass”… whatever it is that helps you when you are feeling down and out. Having this go-to phrase helps us keep things in perspective and can help remind you of these other strategies.
- Limit substance use – you know the risks and dangers of substance use, when feeling vulnerable and already uncertain in your new environment this can create new risks and also lower your aptitude to manage the challenges you are facing.
- Get Outside – this is another go-to for me, when in doubt just walk outside, you don’t have to do anything, just sitting outside and being able to see the open sky can relieve symptoms of whatever you might be feeling, depression, anxiety, or homesickness.
- Video games in a social environment – if you are a gamer, try not to lose yourself to hours of gaming alone, this will definitely not help you beat homesickness. Try to make it as social as you can by making it a fun thing to do with your newfound friends.
- Take advantage of your resources – you have lots at the ready … find out what’s available and make use of them!
- Get off campus – explore, explore, explore… fiding a little adventure in your new home creates positive feelings and could be something fun to do with a new group of friends or through an on-campus community.
- Consider taking a class or two at another college or university in the area – embrace the town and larger community that you are now a part of. If you are in a city you might have the opportunity to take classes at another nearby university or college which will broaden the breadth of your experience and open you up to new people and new opportunities.
- Remember that feelings are temporary – they will come and go, good, bad, and everything in between. Whatever you are feeling right now, will pass.
- Build your home away from home – think about how you can create your home away from home, be it through comfort in your dorm room or finding a favorite local spot to hang out.
- Self-compassion – having a little extra love for yourself can go a long way… at the end of the day it’s you yourself and you, knowing that you can give yourself a break and care for yourself will bring comfort and security, even when you feel alone and uncomfortable in your environment.
Summing it Up
Settling into a new environment takes time, but know that it will happen. You may not love your college, hopefully, you will at least like it, but really getting to know a place that will help you beat homesickness, can take work. Also as I mentioned earlier, just because you like a new place does not mean that you love your home any less. Sometimes we can feel guilty about moving on and embracing something new. Just like in grief, that which you love will always have a special place for you in your life and in your heart. And moving on and forging your path in college is a sign of health and a very appropriate developmental stage to becoming a fully-fledged adult.
If you are struggling with your mental health and are looking for a therapist, you could check out Online-Therpay.com which can connect you to a therapist from anywhere in the world. When you use my affiliate link here, you will get 20% off. Check them out, they use a CBT model and have an array of tools available during and in between sessions.
Thank you for being here with me today… If you found this article helpful please share it with your friends and family and sign up for my newsletter where you will get my latest articles and updates on the mental health tools and courses I am working on… all coming soon. 😊
References:
The New York Times: How to Survive Feeling Homesick
