How to Get Over Homesickness

When you move to a new country without your family or friends for a few months, you likely will go through a series of different emotions. A lot of people refer to this as the emotional stages of culture shock. It is often represented by an image like this:

Although each person's emotional stages will be different depending on their circumstances, many people will experience this roller coaster of emotions. Inevitably, at one point or another during your time abroad, one of these emotions will be homesickness, either for your family, friends, or just the familiarity of something you realized you took for granted in your hometown, such as being able to walk down the street and order a pizza at 10 pm.

Regardless of the reasons, being homesick is a natural emotion that many people will experience when they are in an unfamiliar surrounding for an extended period of time. Here are some tips for how to ease this negative emotion.

• Make a list of all of the positive things that happened throughout your day. 
• My sister gave me this tip when I told her I was feeling down during my first week abroad. Even if it is only one or two things, looking at the positives about each day will help you to remember everything that went right, rather than searching for the negative things that may have happened.
•  Don't spend too much time worrying about what your friends are doing back home. 
• In the beginning of my time in France, I often would look at social media just to see what my friends back home were up to. This led me to think that I was missing out on new memories and fun times, and obsessing over what I was missing back home made me miss out on making new memories with new friends in France.
• Don't compare yourself to other people. 
• Because I had other friends studying abroad in different countries at the same time as me, I got into the bad habit of obsessively looking at their Snapchat stories or Instagram posts and comparing myself to them. This comparison led me to believe that I was missing out or doing something wrong... I would ask myself questions like: Why haven't I made new best friends yet? or Why haven't I traveled as much as my other friends have? In reality, people only post the best parts of their lives on social media, and they usually leave out the not-so-happy emotions that they are likely feeling too. Also, everyone is in a different situation, so if you haven't made best friends by the second week you are abroad, don't panic! It will happen if you put yourself out there!
• Keep in touch with your family and friends back home!
• Whenever I was having a particularly hard day, I would try to FaceTime my parents or my friends. Just seeing familiar faces helped me tremendously and reminded me that I always had people to talk to who would cheer me up. However, talking to friends too often is not always the best idea because you might miss out on making new friends and truly experiencing your new home. Yet, the occasional FaceTime catch-up where my friends filled me in on the latest boy drama or my mom let me talk to my dog was often just what I needed to change my mood. 
• Spend a night watching your favorite shows. 
• When I was feeling homesick and missed the familiarities of home, I would take the night off to relax, eat comfort food, and catch-up on all of my favorite shows on Netflix. Taking a night off and just watching a familiar show calmed me down and allowed me to re-energize for the next day. 
• Don't wish away your time abroad!
• My biggest advice when you are feeling sad is to live in the moment. A negative thought that sometimes popped up in my mind was, "Maybe I shouldn't have studied abroad." I thought that I was missing out on a semester's worth of inside jokes and parties with friends back home. However, while there will be things that you inevitably miss out on, I had to remind myself that I was given the opportunity to live in another country for five months... not everyone gets this opportunity! So, the first time I thought this, I made a list of the reasons why studying abroad was a great opportunity that I then consulted anytime I began to regret my decision to study abroad. Also, just getting some fresh air and exploring my new city always helped to ease my worries. 

I hope these tips help anyone that may be experiencing homesickness or just general sadness while studying abroad. Whenever you're longing to be home, try exploring your city or reaching out to a new friend to hang out–because I guarantee that most everyone feels the same way too at some point during their time studying abroad.