Module 6
Dealing with homesickness
Moving to France is exciting, but it can also stir unexpected emotions. Even if you chose this move willingly, you may still find yourself missing the ease, humour and familiarity of home. This module explores what homesickness is, why it happens and how to build a genuine sense of belonging here.
What homesickness is – and isn't
Homesickness is a normal response to leaving familiar people, places and routines. It can show up as low mood, irritability, tearfulness, reduced motivation or a persistent sense of not quite feeling settled. You may find yourself thinking more about home, comparing your current life to how things used to be or feeling unusually sensitive to small frustrations.
It does not necessarily mean you regret moving, or that you are failing to integrate. You can appreciate your life in France and still miss aspects of home. Homesickness often fluctuates and tends to ease as new routines and connections become more established.
Ultimately, it makes sense to think of homesickness as a complex web of thoughts and emotions involving separation distress linked to disrupted attachment bonds and reduced familiarity in the environment.
The four parts of homesickness
1 Attachment and separation
Psychological research has long shown that humans form attachments not only with people, but also with places and routines. When those bonds are disrupted, the nervous system can register it as a form of loss. Studies on homesickness in students and expatriates show that your degree of attachment to familiar people and places predicts increased distress. This doesn't mean something is wrong, it just means you were strongly bonded to your life at home.
2 Loss of predictibility
The brain prefers familiarity. Cognitive research shows that unfamiliar environments increase mental load. Living in another language, navigating new systems and interpreting subtle cultural cues requires more effort. Over time, that sustained cognitive load can increase stress and lower mood. For the same reasons, homesickness often intensifies when someone is tired or overwhelmed because the brain seeks the ease of what is known.
3 Missing the old you
Social psychology suggests that identity is partly constructed through context. At home, your humour, social status and competence are reinforced daily. In a new country, that feedback loop changes. Research on cultural transition and acculturation shows that identity instability can increase distress, particularly when you're socially less competent in a new culture. So homesickness can reflect a gap between who you were in one place and who you are in another.
4 A grief response
Some researchers conceptualise homesickness as a mild form of grief: a reaction to the loss of the familiar environment rather than a wish to reverse the decision. This helps explain why it can coexist with excitement or satisfaction about living abroad. You can choose to be here and still experience a sense of loss.
WORSE
BETTER
What makes homesickness...
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Isolating yourself until you feel better.
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Naming the feeling rather than suppressing it.
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Excessive media consumption from home.
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Maintaining good quality sleep and a daily rhythm.
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Comparing France to an idealised memory of your home country.
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Building one fixed weekly commitment.
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Avoiding French language or social exposure entirely.
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Creating small rituals you enjoy in France.
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Having no weekly structure and just hoping something will change.
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Limiting passive scrolling on social media.
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Telling yourself you shouldn’t feel this way.
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Allowing a dual identity rather than either/or thinking.
How I stopped comparing everything to life back home
Martin, 28,
originally from
London
If I’m honest, I didn’t really want to move to France. My partner Sam got a good opportunity here and it made sense for us. I was already half-convinced I’d be unhappy, so I compared everything to life in the UK in a pretty unforgiving way. I’d get irritated by small things — the endless admin, shops closing when I wanted them open, not knowing exactly how to behave in certain situations, struggling to follow conversations when people spoke quickly. I was missing my friends, missing the ease of speaking my own language and missing the sense that I knew how life worked.
What's helped was realising I was treating every difference as proof that I’d made a mistake by coming here. And this was draining for me and Sam. So I tried a different approach, and focused on making my own life here better. I found a gym I liked, started going to the same café every Saturday, made more effort to keep in touch with people back home without scrolling through everyone else’s lives and pushed myself to build a couple of routines that were mine, not just things I was doing because of Sam. I still miss home, but I've stopped measuring every day against the UK.
The cultural mistakes my students make...
Martin, 28, originally from London
6 tips for dealing with homesickness
Feeling homesick while living in France is more common than most people expect. In this video, clinical psychologist Kathy Martin shares six practical, research-informed ways to feel settled where you are
Key Takeaways
1. Name it early – homesickness often shows up as irritability, overwhelm or sudden sadness, not just obvious longing for home.
2. Get the basics back in place – regular sleep, proper meals and a bit of daily movement can make a big difference
3. Create familiarity on purpose – repeat the same café, walk, meal or routine until life in France starts to feel less effortful.
4. Focus on a few real connections – you do not need a big social circle, just one or two people you can speak to honestly.
5. Act before you feel ready – regular, low-pressure activities are often what create a sense of belonging in the first place
6. Get support if it is becoming something heavier – if homesickness is turning into persistent anxiety, low mood or withdrawal, it may be time to talk to a professional
When homesickness may be something else...
Homesickness usually comes in waves. It may ease as you build routines, feel more competent in daily life and start forming connections in France. But sometimes what begins as homesickness develops into something heavier and more persistent. It may be worth looking more closely if your distress is no longer mainly about missing home, but has started to feel like a broader decline in your mental health.
Here is what to look out for:
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your low mood is present most days and not lifting
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anxiety is starting to feel constant or hard to manage
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you have lost interest in things that normally comfort or motivate you
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you are withdrawing from other people more and more
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your sleep or appetite has changed noticeably
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it is becoming hard to function at work, socially or in daily life
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it no longer feels mainly about missing home, but about not feeling like yourself at all
If several of these feel true for you, it may help to speak to a psychologist. Sometimes homesickness is just homesickness — but sometimes a move can also trigger depression, anxiety, burnout or an adjustment disorder, especially during a stressful period of life.
How I made peace with living between two countries...
Kathy, 71,
originally from Worcester
After Brexit, I felt as though my life had been split in two. I had to decide where to be officially resident and, practically speaking, France was the clear answer. But emotionally, I wasn't ready. I was still reading British news every morning, still thinking in terms of ‘back home’ and still feeling a jolt of sadness after visits to the UK or a phone call with old friends. For a while, I treated that as a sign that I had failed to settle. In time, I came to see it differently. I stopped thinking of it as a choice between fully belonging here or fully belonging there. At my age, life is rarely so neat. I have a history in one country and a daily life in another. Both are real.
What helped most was letting go of the idea that I had to resolve that tension completely. I still keep parts of my British life close to me, but I also invested more consciously in my life here: local routines, neighbours, favourite places, small commitments. Once I stopped asking myself where I truly belonged and accepted that, in a way, I belonged to both, I felt much more at peace.
How I started feeling at home in France...
Kathy, 71, originally from Worcester
