Lesson 5: Coping with Stress, Midterms and Exams
Homesickness Adds to Your Stress Levels
If you are homesick this can be tied to your stress levels. For those living far away from home and hardly seeing family they are really close to can be very agonizing. If you are a person like that consider going to a college at a manageable distance from home, so you can go back once in a while on the weekends.
Keep in touch with your family; buy a web cam and hook it up to your computer so you can have video and voice conversations. It will make you feel better to see them than not seeing them at all.
Sometimes homesickness is more related to a general feeling of belonging, so create a new home for yourself. Bring things from your old room to make you feel at home in your new room. Bring pictures and frame them, bring old stuffed animals and scrapbooks. Don't worry about people thinking you are childish, there are plenty of people in college who still have their old stuffed animals and get teary eyes when looking at an old picture album. Also bring your own bed sheets, or go shopping with your old friends or mom/dad before leaving for college. Bring the things you bought along and you will have a great memory to hold onto. The main thing is to create an atmosphere you are comfortable in. If you are not it can cause a major obstacle for your academics and your performance. You will find it hard to concentrate and catch yourself thinking about home a lot.
A surefire way to feel better about the place you are is to make friends and find places to go you will love just as much as back home. If you used to live close by water, try and find a river or lake in the neighborhood and spend some time there; take your books to study or have a pick nick with some new friends. If you make friends who are in the same boat and living far from home organize a "back home" night where you tell each other stories of what your home is like. It can be very entertaining if people are from different regions or countries and you can all make your favorite foods or national dishes. You will find that not only you learn so much about the world and your fellow students, but you will also create a bond.
If you don't know anyone far from home and you feel like you are the only one, let me tell you for sure you are not! Put a sign on a message board to look for people who feel the same way, start a club or go out together. You will make so many new friends who might have thought the same as you; that they were all alone.
Always remember that homesickness is part of growing up and moving on. You will never forget home, and you will never have to completely “leave”, but you are entering a new phase of your life now and you will be missing out on a hell of a lot if you let these feelings take the best of you. Try to deal with them by staying in touch with everyone back home, and create your own home for yourself. Then go out and experience life!
