Top Five Tips for Beating Homesickness

Missing home after you've moved abroad can be tough. Try out this advice today.

You arrive in a brand new and exciting part of the world. You're ready to meet fresh people, experience new cultures and widen your horizons and you can't wait for it all to begin... Then, despite all of your best efforts, homesickness kicks in and starts to negatively affect your experience.

Instead of letting homesickness get you down, check out these top 5 tips to improve it so you can start to embrace your new life abroad:

1. Take time to be a tourist

Treat your new home as if you are temporarily stopping by, visit all of its landmarks and participate in its famous activities. Instead of worrying about your decision to live there, get out and learn more about it! Removing the feeling of permanency from the situation always helps and you may even meet some new friends during your exploration.

2. Don't get caught up with FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)

One of the worst culprits for homesickness is when you start to see your old life continuing on without you. Take some time away from Social Media (maybe temporarily turn off notifications from your best friends) to avoid this from happening and make small promises to yourself each day about how you are going to start building new relationships.

3. Surround yourself with home comforts

Whether it is your old stuffed animal, throw pillow, photographs of loved ones, TV box-sets or favourite food, make an effort to ensure you have familiar objects that you love around you. Amongst everything that is new in your life, you will really appreciate having old memories of home to enjoy.

4. Talk about how you're feeling

Homesickness does not mean that you are weak or alone. It is extremely common and understandable. Even those that seem strong, confident and adjusted may be suffering behind closed doors. Talking to somebody (preferably from your new home) is invaluable and can really help release the emotions resting heavily on your mind.

5. Learn a new skill

Moving to a new country is a great way to broaden your understanding of yourself. Why not keep adding to your personal growth? If you throw yourself into a new hobby or passion, it will keep you busy and distracted from missing home and help you to make friends and feel more integrated.

The most important thing to remember is that you're not alone in how you're feeling. Homesickness gets the best of us. It means that you are lucky enough to have a bond with your home country and its people that is powerful enough to live in your heart and we believe that is to be celebrated. Now start enjoying the fact that you can call 2 places home!

Article via TheHomeWanderers.com: Read more about the journey of an international living in Canada.