How to cope with the stress of moving to a different country
Well, this is from my point of view, a student in Canada and how I dealt with the apparent stress of moving from countries. Although it is the norm of the day for children to leave the comforts of home and move abroad to study, the obvious but unspoken devil that actually follows them during this entire process is stress and obviously the feeling of being home-sick 24/7.
No matter how much you train yourself, you'll eventually remember about your home and that can make you lose sight of the primary goal; the reason behind which you left your comfortable life and moved, i.e., study. This, in fact, can affect students to such a point where they waste easily a semester or two before regaining stability, and honestly, can become very worrying for the student, as well as the family back home.
But, this is not necessarily the case, with all of us, me for example and I'll list down how I managed to go through this entire phase completely unscathed. Firstly, my journey to come to Canada to study was dreamt when I was still in high-school. I started living my dream before it became a reality. From the 7th grade, I knew that I wanted to pursue my higher-education abroad and I constantly thought about it and was very vocal about it too for a few years. This may not seem like much, but the truth is that this was by far the most important because the more I spoke and thought about it, the more I prepared my mental state unconsciously. This was like positive reinforcement in the form of auto-suggestion; a phrase that my mother is so fond of using. Little did I know about the subliminal effect it had on me and, this became the reason why I started handling the situation and circumstances of separation better than what I normally would have.
Furthermore, the second and equally important thing that I started doing was not holding to expectations and taking failure in my stride. This was by far the most difficult thing I'd done because I was the youngest in my family, and that meant that I was pampered and had all of my wishes full-filled. This made me entitled and whenever something didn't go my way, I would rave and rant until the sun went down, which was obviously kind of stupid. I started believing in my mum's words even more than before, and the advice she gave 'Focus on working hard and putting in your 100% rather than the result,' became my motto for the next few months of my life. This helped get over my failures and sudden change of events didn't bother me as much. This also helped pave the path for me to become a more mature adult.
For example, when I first came to Kamloops, a small city in British Columbia, I'd actually pictured it to be like a party-hub where the parties run on till early morning and people are just out having fun all the time, but instead, I was greeted with a very picturesque, small, quiet and a beautiful town. Instead of being disappointed by it, I actually fell in love with almost immediately because Kamloops is like a place that I've always wanted to live in; small, cozy and beautiful. Though this may seem stupid at first, you wouldn't believe the amount of students who are dissapointed by this, because they all expected thesame thing I did, but the only difference is, that I've moved past it and in fact, a small town like this is better for me because I'll have fewer distractions. Moreover, I quickly realized that I'd come here to study and not party all day every day, unlike what most people come here to do.
Finally, possibly one of the simplest things you can do is start by becoming more responsible and independent even when living with your family. You could simply start by learning a few basic things such as cooking or folding your clothes, because the fact is, that once you come abroad to study, you have to do everything on your own. Every small little thing that people did for you back home, is now your responsibility and the longer you put it away, the more it'll pile up. So while you still have the chance, try to improve and better yourself every day because as the saying goes, well begun is half done.