How to Deal With Homesickness: 6 Tips for Students

Remember, homesickness is not a weakness you should be ashamed of. Everyone can be longing for a home. If you take into account the tips stated above, you will learn how to adapt to a new environment and live your student life to its fullest.

When entering college, most students decide to move out and live in a dorm or rent an apartment. However, those who are used to home coziness and comfort can develop homesickness. Its symptoms may vary from person to person, but students generally feel stressed, lonely, upset, and isolated. All these can have a negative influence not only on their mental health but also on their academic results.

Instead of focusing on studies, because of stress, students will pay more attention to their symptoms and, as a result, put off their tasks, miss deadlines, etc. Luckily, they can eliminate the pressure thanks to an essay writer online to whom they can delegate some tasks. For instance, EssayPro writers deliver fully original papers within a short period of time and at a low price.

If you also feel nostalgic for home, you might miss all simple things like your old pillow or the smell of food coming from the kitchen. If this interferes with your studies and you don’t know how to deal with this, look through this article thoroughly.

Keep a Journal

When people long for a home, they feel very stressed and tend to overthink a lot. One of the greatest solutions that help to get rid of negative and intrusive thoughts is to keep a journal. This method helps to get in touch with your feelings and thoughts and process everything that is happening to you right now in a new environment.

Moving to another apartment, city, or country means you will be experiencing many new and unfamiliar sensations. Keeping a journal will help you to adapt and track your thoughts. Writing down in a diary how you reflect on your new experience and how they make you feel will help you not only relieve feelings of this distress but also become aware of stressors and have a clear plan for how to deal with them. Consider using a digital journal, which offers convenience and accessibility, allowing you to document your journey wherever you are.

In addition, keeping a journal is a good chance to practice the writing skills you can use when crafting papers. However, you can check out the best assignment services if you still have trouble with tasks like writing essays. Choose the one that meets your requirements and delegate your work.

When journaling, try to stay positive and make sure your diary is more than just a list of complaints and negative thoughts. It’s just crucial to see the good side of your new environment and experience even though you feel miserable, lonely, and sad.

Keep Familiar Things Around

Surrounding yourself with familiar things from home can ease the feeling of homesickness. Bring to your new apartment or dorm room belongings with high sentimental or cultural value, such as:

framed family photos
albums
pillows and blankets
plants
posters

These things will help you feel more connected to home no matter how far away you are. However, try to balance old things with new ones. In order to settle down and adjust to a new environment, you have to embrace the changes that you’re experiencing. So, minimize the number of familiar belongings and surround yourself with new items.

Avoid Obsessing Over It

When you are far away from your native town, the first thing you want to do is call your relatives and friends. Sure, connecting to people back home might be a great coping tool. But in most cases, it only worsens the feelings of such distress. There is a fine line between keeping in touch with close people from your native town and not moving forward.

So, to prevent your attempts to remind yourself of your native town from taking over your life, instead of talking to your mother and loved ones for hours, consider spending more time on making new friends. For instance, you can schedule your calls home by setting limits for how frequently and for how long you will talk to relatives and friends back home. Don’t let

nostalgia for the past keep you from experiencing the present.

Exercise Frequently

Research has shown that people who exercise often release more endorphins that are responsible for fighting anxiety and depression. These two are both common side effects of homesickness. Working out on a regular basis helps to eliminate stress and process unpleasant emotions. Here is the list of activities you can do:

Join an intramural sports team
Cycling (both indoors and outdoors)
Join a Fitness Club
Jogging/running/walking
Yoga
Swimming
Go to the gym

Talk About Your Feelings With Someone

Some people still believe in the myth that talking about your problems with someone is a sign of weakness and that it can cause or worsen symptoms of homesickness. On the contrary, sharing the feelings and emotions you are experiencing can actually help you deal with this distress. Otherwise, when you don’t acknowledge your feelings, you will feel worse.

Find a trusted person who can give you a sympathetic ear and offer advice, for instance:

a parent
a guidance counselor
a mental health professional
a close friend
a college RA

Get Out of Your Comfort Zone and Get Involved

As we have already mentioned above, one of the ways to move on is to make new friends. Sounds very easy, but actually doing this might be challenging for students who moved to a new place. The best solution to start networking and making friends is to get out of your comfort zone by putting yourself in situations where you’ll meet new people.

By getting involved with new activities, you not only meet new people but also distract yourself from your feelings of homesickness and loneliness. For instance, there is a wide range of college clubs, sports teams, or even student government bodies you can join. Thus, you will meet a lot of soulmates who might also suffer from the same distress.

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