When you are away from home and in a new environment, you may experience homesickness, also known as a feeling of emotional distress. You may have moved temporarily or permanently, such as being a college student, working in the military, or being a migrant or refugee. According to the BBC, up to 70 percent of people experience homesickness at one point in time.
Feeling homesick is common following a major life transition, like graduating high school and beginning your college career. Everyone reacts differently to homesickness, but some common signs and symptoms can include anxiety, depression, and physical symptoms. To learn more about your physical symptoms, check out our previous blog “3 Ways to Manage Your Physical Anxiety Symptoms.” To overcome your homesickness, it is important to maintain a connection to your home while also taking steps to modify your current setting so it fits your needs. For more information, keep reading along!
Anchor Therapy is a counseling center in Hoboken, NJ with mental health therapists specialized in helping children, teens, adults, couples, and families with anxiety, depression, relationship issues, trauma, life transitions, and more. Anchor Therapy is accepting new clients and is now providing in-person sessions and teletherapy sessions to residents of New Jersey, New York, and Florida.
What causes homesickness?
When you are away from home, almost everyone will miss an aspect of their home or home life. With that being said, some people experience more severe homesickness than others.
Here are some causes of homesickness:
Difficulty Adapting - When you are in a new situation, you need to adjust accordingly but that is not always an easy thing to do. You may cling to your old habits and avoid situations that require you to change.
Feelings of Not Belonging - If you are coming to the United States from a new country, you may feel like you do not belong to your given community or that you do not share the same cultural values as your neighbors and peers. Even as your surroundings become more familiar, you may still feel like an outsider.
Depression - Depression is a mental health condition that involves constant feelings of sadness and loss of interest in activities that you found to be previously enjoyable. Homesickness and depression can share symptoms, like frequent crying, sleeping issues, withdrawal from your community, and having a hard time concentrating. Homesickness even has the ability to turn into depression itself. Check out our blog “4 Ways to Naturally Treat Depression.”
Grief - If you recently moved places for a better life (e.g., educational opportunities, a new job, etc), you may experience grief for the loss of comfort that you experienced at your former home. You may even grieve home because you felt like it was a place where you belonged. Read our blog “What to Expect in Grief Counseling.”
Productivity Impact - When you are in a new environment, you may experience overwhelming emotions which can cause performance issues at work or school. You may have a hard time concentrating on topics that do not have to do with your home.
Disruption of lifestyle - Moving away from home means that your routine has been uprooted, causing anxiety and stress. Your daily habits and routine cannot be relied on for comfort when you are in the process of moving, especially if your new environment is drastically different than your old one. For more information, our blog “How to Cope with Moving Stress” is a must-read.
Is homesickness a diagnosed mental health disorder?
Technically speaking, homesickness is not a diagnosed mental health disorder, but that does not mean that homesickness cannot affect your mental state. In fact, if you have gradual, temporary homesickness, it is generally not cause for concern.
For example, let us say that you are a teen or young adult who is taking the next step in your life and heading to college. As it is your first time away from home, it is completely expected that you will feel homesick. Likely, your homesickness will decrease over time as you adjust to your new environment. For tips, check out our blog “5 Ways I Prioritize My Mental Health in College.”
On the other hand, if you have severe homesickness that persists for an extended period of time and significantly impacts your life in a negative way, this may be a red flag that something is off. It may even indicate an underlying mental health issue, like anxiety or depression. Take our Anxiety Quiz and Depression Quiz for some guidance.
If you think that you may have an underlying mental health disorder, working with an anxiety therapist or depression therapist is recommended. Your life transition therapist will assess your symptoms, decide your diagnosis, and offer the type of therapy you need to feel like your best self again and adjust to your new setting.
What are the symptoms of homesickness?
Feeling homesickness can impact both your mental and physical health. Symptoms of homesickness may look like anxiety or depression. If you are dealing with homesickness, you may experience the following symptoms.
Emotional symptoms of homesickness encompass the following:
Anxiety
Irritability
Anger (Check out our blog “The Most Important Things You Need To Know About Anger Management”)
Isolation from others (For help, read “6 Helpful Tips For Living With Social Anxiety”)
Low motivation
Difficulty paying attention
Depressed mood
Physical symptoms of homesickness may include but are not limited to:
Headaches
Low energy
Stomach problems
Sleeping too little or sleeping too much
Body aches and pains
Increased or decreased appetite
Remember, homesickness looks different for everyone. Depending on the type of move or change you are experiencing and whether you are actively trying to deal with your life stressors, you may react to homesickness differently.
How can I cope with homesickness?
In order to move forward in a positive direction, you need to reconcile your past with your future while you adjust to a new place or city. Recovering from homesickness can take time, so be patient with yourself.
Attend events or take classes
Whether you are working for a new company or starting your studies at a college, your place of work or school may encourage you to learn more about your new city. It also provides you with the opportunity to meet new people in your community.
2. Understand that homesickness is normal
When you undergo a big move, it is normal to miss your family, friends, pets, and home. Believe it or not, this means that you have a healthy attachment to your loved ones. For more information on the different attachment styles, read our blog “How Do The Four Attachment Styles Impact Romantic Relationships?”. It will just take you some time to adjust to your new normal.
Homesickness can bring up a wide range of emotions, from sadness to anger. Whatever end of the spectrum you are on, it is perfectly okay. Typically, you will feel distress when you try to push away these uncomfortable emotions instead of accepting and embracing them. It is okay to feel homesick and, sooner or later, these feelings will leave you.
If you are trying to practice self-acceptance of negative emotions, attending Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) may be best. An MBCT therapist at Anchor Therapy will teach you how to employ mindfulness and meditation exercises to build up a tolerance for difficult emotions.
3. Explore your new setting
While it may seem counter-intuitive, when you step outside your comfort zone, you are taking a big step towards adjusting to your new environment. The thought or doing something so out of the ordinary can seem overwhelming, especially if you are already having a hard time adjusting to your new city or school, but it is necessary for facilitating meaningful, long-lasting change.
You may want to find a new “favorite” place that you can add to your weekly rotation. For example, you can find a cozy coffee shop right by your office or a particular nook in your school’s library. This can create a familiar space where you feel more at home. Making an effort to get to know your new setting will help you feel more comfortable.
If this approach interests you, Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) Therapy may be a good fit for you. In ERP therapy for homesickness, your exposure therapist may encourage you to gradually acclimate yourself to your new environment. Your exposure counselor can also assist in helping you build positive associations to this experience.
4. Celebrate your old memories and create space to make new memories
When you move to a new area, it is not uncommon to reminisce on your previous place of residence. You may find yourself looking at old photos or replaying videos of loved ones more often than usual in an attempt to relive past memories so you do not have to deal with your current situation. You can appreciate these old memories while creating new ones.
Making new memories in a new place is a great way to move forward with your life. You will find much better about your homesickness once you learn to appreciate past memories while carving out space for new memories.
5. Take care of your health
If you feel sad, anxious, or overwhelmed, it is easy to let aspects of your daily routine go out the window, even if these were coping skills that helped you a lot. For example, you may have let go of your daily routine of meditating and working out due to the disruption of a major life transition, like starting college. If you feel like your mental health has declined since begining your journey of higher education, check out our blog “Feeling Stressed and Anxious in College? Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Can Help.” Taking care of your health is important and it should never take a back-seat.
Sleeping, eating well-balanced meals, moving your body, and using healthy coping skills to improve your mental and emotional well-being are important. There is a connection between taking care of yourself physically and how you feel mentally.
This could be a good opportunity to reflect on your daily routine and think about any lifestyle changes you may want to make. One step toward overcoming homesickness may be attending mental health counseling.
There are certain therapeutic modalities that can help you overcome your sickness. In addition to Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) and Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) Therapy as mentioned previously, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT) can help.
In CBT for homesickness, you will pinpoint and challenge your negative thought patterns. CBT can help you reframe the thoughts you have about being away from home. From there, you and your CBT therapist will work together to find healthy coping mechanisms that work for you as you build your resilience.
In IPT counseling, the focal point is on communication and interpersonal relationships. IPT therapy can be a useful tool in helping you build connections with people in your new community so you have an effective support system. This can make you feel less lonely and isolated.
If you are in a geographic location where you are isolated from in-person mental health resources, online therapy services may be the best bet for you. Teletherapy is proven to be just as effective as in-person therapy. For more information, read “5 Common Stereotypes You Should Know About Online Therapists.” At Anchor Therapy, we offer virtual therapy to residents of New Jersey, New York, and Florida.
6. Keep in touch with your loved ones
When people are experiencing homesickness, they sometimes make the big mistake of trying to cut off communication with loved ones so they can simply ‘get over’ their feelings of homesickness; however, it does not quite work like that. Actually, it is the opposite that helps you get over homesickness. Staying connected regularly by writing letters, sending emails or texts, or phoning a loved one can help.
However, things can get taken too far if you are engaging too much with loved ones. For example, calling your mom every day may enhance feelings of homesickness. Perhaps you could start with phoning your mom once or twice a week. From there, depending on your level of homesickness and tolerance, you could up the communication.
Homesickness is a normal reaction to missing home or loved ones. It can manifest as anxiety, depression, or even physical issues. While it may be hard to imagine at the moment, you will overcome your homesickness. Try to take care of yourself and seek the help of a life transitions therapist if you are seriously struggling.
Victoria Scala
is the Social Media Manager and Intake Coordinator at Anchor Therapy in Hoboken, New Jersey. She is a graduate of the Honors College of Rutgers University-Newark. In her roles, Victoria is committed to managing the office’s social media presence and prioritizing clients' needs.
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