396. Homesickness

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Hello, everybody. I'm Gemma Spek and welcome back to the psychology of your 20s.

The podcast where we talk through the biggest changes, moments and transitions of our 20s

and what they mean for our psychology.

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast.

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Without further ado, let's get into today's episode.

Today, my friends, we are talking about homesickness, that deep sadness and melancholy we get from being away from home for just a bit too long.

They're like desire to run back to where we feel the safest, the sick feeling in our stomach, the anxiety we get when the sun grows down.

The only place you want to be is not where you are.

That kind of homesickness, the kind that I'm sure you can all relate to that we've all experienced at some point in our 20s, at some point in our life.

The best way that I've seen homesickness described is as a mini grief.

Even when the reason you are away from home is a good thing, is a great thing.

Even when it's because you've gone to college or you're moving on with your life or you're traveling to places that you only ever dreamed about, you've moved cities for an amazing opportunity for love.

There is still this recognition that you are saying goodbye to something and a way of living and a way of existing that is really comfortable and familiar and that you love.

You're grieving things maybe never being the same again.

You're grieving the security, you're grieving the past and you're missing not just the place, not just the location but the memories, you're missing your system, you're missing your routine, you're missing relationships.

Home sickness is so much more complicated and hard that I think a lot of people give it credit.

That's what makes this also emotionally painful.

It's a full body experience and today I feel like we need to just talk about it in depth.

It's also strange because you also know in this period of life that you need to experience some hard emotions, homesickness being one of them to grow.

It's kind of the price you pay for getting out of your comfort zone and seeing the world.

There are so many people who feel this way and who feel very frustrated but also feel very indebted to the experience and guilty and it can be hard to enjoy the moment that you're in and also to see clearly how life is going and what you want in the future.

Whether this is the place you should be or whether you should go home, it's a very confusing emotion.

Let's really dive into it today and just break down the psychology.

What it is, why it is so emotionally painful.

Went to listen to your homesickness but also went to not listen to it and also my tips, the things that you could do today, the things you could do tomorrow, the things you could do this week that I can guarantee will make you feel better.

So without further ado, let's get into it.

So let's begin with this. Why are you feeling so homesick right now?

You're feeling homesick right now because your mind and your body is programmed to avoid drastic changes and to make you very much aware that it doesn't like drastic changes when they happen, whether you like it or not.

There is this fascinating study from 2012 looking at university students that found homesickness isn't just like a pesky annoying feeling.

It's actually a stress response. Your body, your mind, your nervous system likes certainty likes knowing likes safety because that is where you can flourish.

Best. What is most known? What is most safe? What is most certain? Home. Home, your routines, your childhood bedroom, the space you decompress every single night, the environment where you know exactly what to expect.

That is where your body and your mind always wants you to go back to.

Every single human needs some version of this. It is wired into our DNA and into our way of being to have a home base or to have some environment or some space where we feel our safest and where we can just switch off for the day for the month, for the hour.

That is why we literally have something called place attachment theory. This idea, this idea from psychologists and scientists that we form deep emotional bonds with places.

That is something that we are hardwired to do. The same way that we form deep emotional bonds with people and like people, certain places become part of who you are.

They become part of how you see yourself, they hold really precious memories, they hold your routines, they hold your sense of safety.

They also are what hold our default self, the person that we are at our core, the person we most naturally become when we feel our safest.

Normally at home, even for nomads, right, even for people who give the impression of needing nothing, just like the wider open space, like the wider open road, the wider open spaces are for them home.

There is not a human alive that doesn't have some or need some kind of environmental or external consistency, even if that consistency is inconsistency.

So when you leave those spaces and say goodbye, when you leave home, when you move city, it is like a breakup, it's like a death.

Your brain has to reprogram where to go to feel safe, what we can and can't trust, what makes us feel good, what feels normal for us now,

whilst managing the pain and the loss and the pain of nostalgia.

Nostalgia and home sickness, by the way, incredibly similar emotions, something you may not know, the word nostalgia was initially created as a medical diagnostic term for sailors who were suffering from home sickness.

Literally, that is what the word for home sickness was, nostalgia.

You want to know something else interesting, another interesting psychology history fact, nostalgia is one of the most intense emotions you can experience.

It's also not distinctly good or distinctly bad, but when you feel it, researchers show that you really feel it, if you know what I mean, like you feel it like nothing else, and that's what you're enduring right now.

Again, it's like a breakup, it's like a breakup where you idealize all the good things, you don't remember any of the bad things.

Your brain has this natural positivity bias towards the past, towards home compared to the reality of the present, which is very colorful and vivid and real that you're experiencing right now.

And the rose colored glasses that we have for the past versus the accurate vision we have for the present means that the present feels a lot darker.

Essentially, what this explanation basically says is that being away from your home, even for a great thing, even for a fantastic thing, is always initially going to mean that there will be a time where you don't have a strong place attachment that you can go home to.

Immediately, and that feels really threatening to your brain.

Your body is responding to that, responding to that threat, trying to process that, and it does that by activating that stress response.

A stress response, your stress response is basically just your body speeding things up internally to help you find a solution quicker, speeding up your thoughts, speeding up your nervous system, speeding up all these things.

Hence why you feel anxious, hence why you idealize home, hence why you may be withdrawn socially, you may want to spend more time inside, you may not be sleeping well, you may not be hungry, you may be really worried, especially social and physical withdrawal.

It's interesting, some researchers actually suggest this is a natural hermiting instinct when we feel homesick, we're trying to, it's trying to drive you to spend more time on whatever space you're in to become more familiar with it or to make it feel like home.

That can obviously not be great if that's the only thing you do, but all of this is this reaction to stress and to not having that homeostasis, that equilibrium.

The confusing thing is that you don't always feel this way straight away, right, or all at once.

That's because when we initially enter a new space or a new place, there is always going to be like a honeymoon or an adjustment period.

Basically, there is always going to be a period where your brain is like, this is really fun, and still kind of thinks like, oh, we're just here temporarily, like home is still home, we'll be back there soon.

And because of that unconscious belief, like you can kind of let loose and have a fantastic time, like you're exploring, you're meeting new people, like you're trying your foods, you see the tower, I don't know, like you're going out all the time, you're trying on a new version of yourself, and it loads you into like the false sense of security of like, oh, I've avoided homesickness altogether, like I really just got into the thick of it.

It's always going to come, whether it's for a minute, whether it's for a month, I found this when I moved to London.

Honestly, I was so naive, all my friends were wanting me, they're like, you have to be prepared, like you think it's going to be shit at some point, and I genuinely believed that I had avoided it.

Like after the first month or two, I was like, this has been easy, and only at like three months time, like I was swiftly taken out, like it came for me, the way that it comes to every one of us.

And the first wave of homesickness, this wave that I'm definitely experiencing right now, is often the worst because, again, you've been lulled into this idea that you're fine.

You've been lulled into a false sense of security by the honeymoon period.

So the emotional whiplash increases the intensity of all these really hard feelings.

It can also be particularly brutal because, I don't know if you're a university student, if you're at college, if there are all these other people around who have made the same move as you.

Sometimes like they're having a great time, they look like they're adjusting fine, they look like nothing is bothering them.

And you're probably thinking like, why can't I be like these people? Why am I not finding this easy?

The answer isn't just, you know, maybe they don't have as much to miss, it's probably because of the person you are.

People who feel really deeply, people who are sensitive, people who are in touch with the world, who are empathetic, who are big feelers, who are emotional, and I say that is a positive thing.

Often struggle more with adjustments like this, because they just feel everything on a bigger scale, including this nostalgia,

including the pain of saying goodbye, including the people they miss.

It also means that when the time comes, when the time turns, when things start feeling good, you're going to feel really good.

Literally, you're going to feel this better than anybody.

In 2014, there was an FMRI study done on this very thing that looked at the emotional processing of people who were self-reported, highly sensitive people, and those who were not.

And the hard emotions for them definitely registered hugely and enormously, but sort of the great emotions.

Like the happy moods showed up so much more brilliantly in their mind, and as a feeling compared to those who weren't as sensitive.

So that's maybe a little bit of a silver lining to look forward to.

It's hard right now, but it's going to be matched with such an amazing greatness on the other side.

It's also really important not to fall too much into a comparison trap here, just because you're experiencing this differently from somebody who moved six months before you or somebody else in your dorm, doesn't mean it's something about you that you've made a mistake.

It's not because the situation isn't right for you.

Every situation, every person, I guess, just adjusts at their own time and pace.

And you know what? Who knows?

Those people are sometimes still in the honeymoon phase. That's why it looks like it's all working out for them.

I remember when I was at college, I had this friend who, for the first two years that we were there, she was having the best time.

She was like the biggest supporter of the university. She had all the merch.

She would wear like her anew hoodie everywhere. She was like the life of the party.

She was having such a great time.

Genuinely, she could have been the school mascot.

And then at like year two, she was like, I miss home so much.

Like I don't know if I can stay here.

I genuinely was at times thinking like, oh, she's going to leave this person who was like the most pro

who just seemed to be adjusting better than anybody.

The homesickness came for her eventually like it comes for all of us.

You simply just, you cannot compare Apple store oranges.

Your time and the time it takes for you to adjust is going to be different.

So now that we kind of understand why homesickness happens, because it is a stress response,

because of our sense, the sense of safety we need in the place attachment we need as humans,

let's talk about when you should say like enough is enough.

When do you know this isn't just homesickness?

This is something else. And also how can you deal with homesickness?

How can you make yourself feel better during what is a very stressful time?

We'll be right back after this short break.

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I have to be honest, so many of my recent experiences are really informing this episode today,

because I've been down bad with homesickness recently.

And as much as London is amazing, and you can post about it and make it look amazing,

there have definitely been times where I've genuinely thought, what am I doing?

Why did I make such a stupid decision?

I should go back to Australia, the food is better, the weather is better, the lifestyle is better,

the cost of living is better, why did I give that up?

What did I do this for? This is why everybody in the UK moves to Australia.

It's better there.

I think definitely a lot of tears has been a lot of panic, a lot of asking my parents to send me photos of my dog,

a lot of looking at apartments back in Sydney.

And something me and my boyfriend have been discussing is, when do we...

When do you stop ignoring that feeling?

When do you take that feeling as a sign?

I think right now we kind of know it's run of the mill homesickness, right?

We've not been here for very long.

It's going to run its course like any other sickness.

But when do you make the call that like this may be something important to listen to?

Here's what we decided.

This is not professional psychological advice.

This is just us talking about it, me sharing it with you.

Obviously make your own decision here.

But I think that if it's been more than a year,

and if you have given this new place a really good shot,

like you have really tried if you've made some friends, if you've established a routine,

if you've gone three months without visiting home,

if this is not a momentary feeling, but something you feel at least once a day intensely,

and it's not getting better, even gradually, then maybe it's not home sickness.

Maybe this is just not where you are meant to be.

And that is a possibility within this.

The thing is, I do truly believe that you can make a home wherever you are.

But sometimes it's just that you don't want to.

And when you've really tried, and you've really given it your all,

and you've given it a shot, and the motivation still isn't there,

then I think you're always going to be homesick.

I don't know, maybe deep down you have no desire to call this place your home.

It just goes beyond this level of adjustment and of safety.

Before you jump to that conclusion,

because I think it's a very easy one to jump to if you were in the thick of things right now,

I do think you owe it to yourself to commit as fully as you can for a period of time,

just to avoid the what if of like prematurely closing your door

or finishing a story that is seconds away from getting good.

I always say it takes three months to adjust to a new city,

six months to feel okay about the decision,

a year to decide whether it's the right decision long term.

And I think having that equation, having that timeline,

or having like maybe even more so a deadline,

for when you can start reading into your home sickness,

is really helpful in this situation.

Like this timeline, this formula,

it also matches a lot of what we know about psychological adaptation.

After a major life change,

like moving cities,

like changing jobs, going through a breakup,

whatever it may be,

our emotional state is always going to spike.

If it didn't, I'd be worried.

It's always going to spike.

Research, though, from the 70s,

shows that around the three to six month mark

is when things start to return to what they call baseline level.

And that is what signals adjustment.

Until then, you just have to move through this.

Home sickness is like any emotion.

It might feel terrible.

I do also think it's trying to tell you something.

It's telling you that you have a lot to be grateful for.

It's also telling you that you're probably very scared,

that you're very lost, you're very lonely.

Addressing those feelings, first and foremost,

knowing that sometimes it just takes time

is really where you have to begin.

I think some people, and this is what I found,

some people will tell you, like,

your home sickness is lying to you.

Like, just don't listen to it.

It's lying to you.

I don't think that's true.

It's not that your home sickness is lying to you.

It's not that there isn't something

that you really do miss, and you deserve to miss.

It's just that it's only telling you one story.

And it's only telling you the story of what you know.

The story of what feels safe.

The story of how amazing your friends are.

The story of how much you miss your pets.

The story of your routine.

It keeps telling you how wonderful that all was,

because it was wonderful.

What your home sickness is admitting, though,

or making it hard for you to see

is how wonderful things could be.

And the other story, the other situation that is,

that could also be told about where you are right now,

which is that things get better,

which is that things are going to start to pick up,

which is that in a few months,

you're going to start feeling more yourself,

you're going to have a few more friends,

and then one day,

you're probably going to have one of those days

where you're just like, everything is amazing.

That is the other story that you could tell yourself

about the situation.

Two months' time,

you could have the best day of your life in this new place.

And you could feel just as grateful for this experience

as you do for the home that you love so much.

Both stories are true.

And the trick is,

you need to focus on both of them at the same time.

This sucks right now.

I loved what I had,

and also something I didn't even know I wanted,

and could love as much as going to come from this.

There is something amazing on the horizon.

Hold both truths in either hand.

Again, so much of this advice is very breakup-coded.

Sometimes it's nice to think that way of like,

you're grateful for the relationship that you had,

but you know you could find better.

It is a real psychological strategy.

So to summarize that,

don't let the urgency of homesickness

and the urgency of your stress response

convince you that you've made a mistake

and that you need to remedy it immediately.

Give yourself some time.

Of course,

if after a while,

you know, it really isn't working,

you can totally make the best decision.

But just give yourself time

to really commit to this and to this opportunity.

I've learnt so much about homesickness

from all the times I've moved.

So I want to give you some tips

that I'm currently putting into play in my own life.

Things that are like general

and also things that are more actionable

that you could do like today.

Firstly, and I think I said this in my seven tips

for moving to a new city episode.

But for the first three months,

this is the biggest tip I will give you

if you can avoid it, do not go home.

Again, keeping on this breakup metaphor.

This is coming back many times.

What is one of the best things

that you can do after you break up with somebody?

In the aftermath of a breakup or a separation,

go no contact.

And you need to go no contact with the place you miss.

As hard as that is,

they're not a toxic ex.

You probably will grow back eventually.

But it's important to do this to interrupt

the detachment process.

Otherwise, your brain is never going to fully

into this idea that you are in a new chapter,

you are in a new season.

Every time you go back,

there's a reinforcement loop at play.

Seeing your old rooms,

seeing your old friends,

having your own routine

gives you a dopamine hit

and it temporarily sews a sense of longing.

But that relief strengthens the initial craving

because your self-control has weakened.

Neuroscience research on breaking an attachment

shows that reminders of a lost attachment

activate the same reward

and craving systems involved in addiction.

The more you go back,

the harder it is to move forward as terrible as that may sound.

Secondly, I will say,

find your old favorites in your new place.

Make a project out of thinking about all the places

that you really loved from your old home

and finding the next best thing

or the better thing where you are now.

This was my number one priority when I moved to London.

I knew I needed to find a gym

and they also launched

a local cafe,

a local library

that I loved just as much

as the ones that I had left.

With side note.

This didn't go as well as I wanted it to.

I found my dream gym.

Honestly, a gym that was better than the one

I had back in Australia.

I was so excited for it

and it actually burnt down.

It burnt down within,

this is not a made up story.

I got a year long membership.

It burnt down two days later.

We can laugh,

laugh otherwise you'll cry about this,

but commit to just finding the things that you know

you really need in a location

in this new place

so that you have both that attachment

to what you really loved

and what grateful for

and also this new excitement for

how this is showing up in your new life.

Thirdly, I would say

days that you are not feeling good.

Whether it is today,

whether it is in a couple weeks,

get outside.

First, get outside,

second come back and get cozy.

Both things are equally important here.

You have to find the balance.

I cannot overstate the importance of

keeping busy

and the importance of adventure

and keeping the honeymoon period

and the honeymoon phase of a new place alive

and ensuring that you don't get stuck

in convenient routines,

not chosen routines.

If you want to overcome your home sickness,

you've got to treat every single day

like it is your first day in this new city.

You've got to play tourist.

You've got to go out and do stuff.

Literally, it was my 26th birthday the other day

and I walked 26 kilometers across London

just for the adventure.

Just to keep me focused on all the new things

that I'm seeing and the opportunities

and just the blessing of like getting to be here, right?

And getting to see things I may have never seen

if I hadn't had the opportunity to do this.

Equally, equally,

you need to keep showing your body

and your mind that you are safe here,

that you are comfortable.

I see a lot of people

like go all out with the adventure

and then they burn out

because they never spend any time at home.

Your home is also important.

You have to show yourself that you are comfortable here,

you like it here,

that this is a place that you feel safe

if you want one thing you can do today.

Go out on that big long walk

of a new neighborhood,

you haven't explored yet.

Give yourself like a $40 budget,

whatever it is,

and get some really cool,

comforting stuff for your space.

Buy nice bedsheets.

I said this in my other episode on this.

Buy nice bedsheets.

Buy a nice lamp.

Buy some pictures of home.

Buy a cute trinket.

So that this new home feels like a permanent one

or feels like one that is comforting.

Feels like one that you want to be in.

You need both things.

You need the adventure.

You need the novelty.

You need the newness of,

and the excitement of being in a place

that ancestors of yours

or other people that you know

could only dream of

and then also making sure you have time

to make your home,

make your room,

make your space,

your safe space,

so that your body does have that

opportunity to decompress.

This next tip is going to be the one

that you probably hate the most,

especially if you're really close with your family,

especially if you're really close with your friends,

try to only call home once or twice a week.

Maximum.

This is going to be the hardest part,

but similar to the above tip,

you're essentially detoxing.

This isn't forever, you know,

just until like the calls become more sweet

and bittersweet,

but it is so important.

You know, I was on this Reddit page

that was like home sickness and adulthood,

and it was all these people

giving these tips of like,

call home as much as possible,

and like talk to your friends

and your family as much as possible.

It's almost like drinking alcohol

when you are really sad.

Like it's going to make you feel really good,

and then it's going to make you feel really terrible,

or like eating candy

when you're really hungry.

Like it's the thing that you,

it's just there,

it would just be the easiest way to satiate

an urge or a need,

and then you just realize

it was probably a bad decision.

And the reason is because

it just keeps this again.

It keeps this reinforcement cycle alive

of like,

when I am feeling a bad feeling,

the thing that's going to comfort me the most is home,

because that is better than anything I have here.

And it's such a powerful urge

because of course it is,

but you have to deliberately try and break that

if you want to be able to form a new attachment

with this new city that you're in.

I've been doing this

as of a couple weeks ago.

It's been really hard,

but it's forced me to rely on

new friends in the city

and my boyfriend who lives here,

and also it's forced me to rely on myself

and to just be like,

hey, I can actually handle this.

And part of home sickness,

again, is I think just being able to say to yourself,

I can handle this,

and I can do hard things.

I will also,

this is not really a tip.

It's just advice.

It's a movie recommendation,

randomly.

Watch the movie Brooklyn.

If you are feeling

intense home sickness right now,

sometimes I think

any feeling,

sometimes I think one of the greatest things we can do

is seeing somebody else's story

even during that

and seeing that they turn out okay.

It's basically like vicarious learning,

or like vicarious modeling,

we would call it in psychology.

Basically seeing an example

and knowing it's possible for us,

but this movie is incredible.

It's with Sasha Ronan,

based in New York,

based in Ireland,

about this young woman

who moves from Ireland to Brooklyn.

I'm not going to spoil it anymore.

That's kind of a generic migration story,

but it is so profoundly beautiful.

And there is this quote in it

that I think is just the best quote

about home sickness,

which is like home sickness

is like any other sickness.

It's really annoying

and it makes you feel

wretched when you've got it

and then pretty soon

it will move on to somebody else.

And you won't be able

to remember what it felt like.

Any big emotion,

you have to move through it

rather than around it.

And home sickness is no different.

Anything you can do to feel it fully

and then also know that this is

just kind of part of the story

and know that this is maybe

just the price you pay

for an incredible life

and for a big life.

This is the price you have to pay

for a big life is missing home,

missing maybe even multiple homes

is a great mindset shift.

Speaking of a mindset shift,

this is the one

that I will leave you with

as a final thought.

In your hardest times

with this,

in your hardest days,

whether you're a college,

whether you're traveling,

whether you've just moved,

I want you to remember that

and this is a weird thing

I've noticed in my 20s,

every great thing

always asks us to give up

something else we truly

love and think is great.

There is always a trade-off.

Always.

This new city,

this new opportunity

is fantastic.

And it's going to be fantastic

but it's going to ask you

to give up something else.

You can't be too greedy with it.

And the price that you are paying

is home sickness, right?

And it's a brutal cost.

It's also temporary.

And the alternative,

the comparison,

is the person that you know

from high school,

the person that you know

from childhood,

the you know from university,

who never did anything like this,

and who maybe

hasn't experienced

the low of this feeling,

but also has never experienced

the high of that first day

where it just suddenly feels great.

Or the high of

meeting somebody you never

would have met

if you'd stayed where you were.

The high of just having people

over at the place that you now

call home of your parents

coming to see your new life.

So it's kind of this choice

and this has nothing to do

with home sickness

and everything to do with life.

If you want a big life,

it comes with costs.

If you want a small life,

you might be more in the center

of your emotional spectrum,

never experiencing such terrible lows.

You're also probably never going to experience

such terrific, high,

powerful moments

of just feeling really capable,

feeling like you've done the thing,

feeling like,

God, I'm so glad I've done this

that can only come with hindsight.

And it's hindsight

that it's going to come to you.

And I think part of this

is me trying to say it to myself

with hindsight.

It's hindsight that's going to come

with my move to London,

but I truly believe it.

And I, yeah,

and I just,

I'm excited.

And that's the feeling I try

and replace my anxiety with

is just excitement

and optimism and possibility.

So if you have made it this far,

good luck.

I know home sickness

is really, really painful

and really sad.

And I miss my mom

and I miss my dog

and I miss all my friends

so you are not in that boat alone

and I'm also really, really proud of us.

I'm really proud of you

for doing the thing

that is the hard thing.

And I think you will most certainly

be rewarded for that.

If you have made it this far,

leave a little comment down below

where are you experiencing

home sickness from?

Are you in Paris?

Are you in North Dakota?

Are you in New Zealand?

Are you in Kenya?

Like, I don't know.

Where are you listening

to this episode from?

I'd love to know.

Make sure that you are following us

on Instagram if you feel called to do so.

Make sure you leave a five-star review

if you related to this episode,

if it helped you out

and that you are following along

for more advice for your 20s.

If you're in the US or Canada,

you can also watch this episode

or all future episodes

if you don't want to rewatch this episode

on Netflix.

Just look up the psychology.

If you're 20s on Netflix,

you will find us.

You can see our studio.

You can see my face.

It's a very fun experience.

Thank you to our researcher Libby Colbert

for her assistance with this episode.

She's amazing.

But until next time, be safe.

Be kind.

Be gentle to yourself.

We will talk very, very soon.

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What if mine control is real?

If you could control the behavior of anybody around you,

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