Homesickness is a feeling that no one is fully immune to. Especially if you move to live overseas for a longer period of time. That’s why feeling homesick is completely normal and nothing to be ashamed of.
And yet, homesickness shouldn’t be ignored. If left alone, this feeling can prevent you from enjoying your life. Luckily, there are a few things you can do to avoid homesickness or at least to reduce it.
Let’s find them out.
Keep in touch with your beloved ones
It’s important to feel connected to your family and friends when living abroad. And today we have a lot of ways to keep in touch even across physical distance. Be sure to regularly contact your beloved ones. It’s okay to call or write them. Just don’t go overboard. Trying to maintain too tight of a connection might make homesickness worse.
A good way to keep in touch without calling or texting every day is to send gifts to your homeland. With international package shipping, you can send a package to Poland, Ukraine or any other country across different continents. Shipping gifts will help you to feel connected to your beloved ones even during the biggest holidays of the year.
Explore your new environment
The unknown is scary. That’s why you should get to know your new surroundings as soon as possible. Exploring is exciting, like going on an adventure. It’ll help to keep sad thoughts away and it’ll let you find more nice things about the new place than staying closed off in your room.
If it’s hard to motivate yourself to go out, create a little game. Set yourself a goal of finding one nice thing each month and sharing it with your family and friends back at home. You can take and send a picture of beautiful architecture. Or buy and send a physical item. It’ll help you to get to know the ins and outs of international parcel shipping.
With this knowledge and experience, even shipping to Russia will be a piece of cake. And that’s handy. You can share your wisdom with your family and friends. You’ll feel less homesick when you all have a way to cheer each other with small packages.
Meet new people
Keeping in touch with your beloved ones back at home is a good way to fight off loneliness. But it cannot replace the need for physical contact. To feel less estranged in the new place, you need to make new friends.
Start with your classmates or co-workers. Try chatting with them at the campus. You might find a lot in common with some of them. They may also introduce you to people from their relationship network. And everything could lead to the beginning of new friendships.
The key is to take the first step and don’t feel discouraged if everything doesn’t work out right away.
Create a routine
We feel homesick not only because we’re distanced from our family and friends. We also miss things we used to do every day. We might even not notice how comfortable we felt with our routine until we lose it.
You’ll feel less homesick if you create a routine at the new place. It can be similar to the one you had at home. Or it could be completely new. The most important is to have things that you do every day and that make you feel comfortable, less out of the ordinary.
Once you get used to the new routine, things at the new place won’t seem strange anymore. You’ll create a feeling of familiarity.
Homesickness is hard to deal with. But instead of pushing the feeling away or closing off with it, you should help yourself and try things that make you feel better.
