While moving to a new city can be an exciting adventure for you – especially when you’re also moving to another state altogether, the house-moving process is likely to be accompanied by an excessive amount of stress as well.
It’s no secret that moving from one home to another can be extremely exhausting, both physically and mentally.
But here’s the thing: regardless of how tired physically you feel right after the move, you should be able to get your strength back in a couple of days. A good night’s sleep after Moving day and taking it easy on the next day should do the trick of getting you back in shape.
However, you may not feel well mentally for a long time after the move. The truth is that the psychological effects of moving house can be too powerful and at times too devastating depending on your specific relocation circumstances.
Sometimes a house move can have an adverse effect on your mental health for a number of valid reasons such as enduring high levels of stress, draining your savings to pay for the move, leaving behind close friends and dear family, finding yourself in a strange environment, and taking a big step out of your comfort zone.
Add the fear of the unknown and you can see why moving house can take its emotional toll on your already troubled mind.
Here are the best 10 ways to handle the psychological effects of moving.
1. Ask friends for assistance
It’s important to know that you’re not alone during a highly transitional period like a house move. It’s no secret that moving to a new home is very seldom a one-man affair and this is exactly why you should seriously consider asking your best friends to give you a hand with whatever they can.
It’ll be easier for you to handle the psychological effects of moving when you know that you can rely on your pals when the need is dire. And yes, having your friends come over and help you out with packing and moving heavy furniture is a huge bonus, but their moral support during that difficult time should mean even more for you in the end.
Organize a moving away party for your close friends. You may find it challenging to find time for a farewell party but that’s the perfect opportunity to see your dear buddies one more time before you go away.
The mere thought that you’ll spend some quality time with your best friends should give you the mental strength and added incentive to finish all moving tasks more quickly so that you can focus on throwing a memorable moving party prior to Moving day.
You may not fully realize this but a good amount of move-related stress is directly linked to the great volume of possessions you’ll want to move to the new place.
Having too many things to pack and move will give you an extra dose of stress simply because you will have to
spend much more time packing those extra items,
spend more dollars on additional packing supplies,
spend more money to cover the higher transportation costs, and
look for extra storage space in the new place.
Now, ask yourself if you really need all the stuff you intend to move between the two homes. Be honest with yourself about which things you genuinely like and will use in the future, and which things are just useless junk that will only waste your time, money, storage, and nerves.
Be decisive and get rid of any items that you don’t like and don’t see yourself using in the near future. Sometimes it can be difficult to let go of some items, especially when they have some sort of sentimental value for you.
However, once you pare down your possessions, you should find yourself in a better mental state than before. Remember that a decluttered home means a decluttered mind as well.
Having packed the kitchen already, treating yourself to a nice dinner at a fancy restaurant makes a lot of sense.
Packing for a move will be the most time-consuming task in your Moving Checklist – the tough job can take many days to complete, days that often stretch out into weeks.
As a result, it can be really discouraging when you find yourself packing away your things with no end in sight.
It can be really tough mentally when you know you have a huge project on your hands that will take almost all the time you have until Moving day. So, to make things easier on your mind, consider doing a couple of things at once: breaking up the packing process into mini-tasks and rewarding yourself after completing each mini packing job.
For example, packing up your bedroom is a big project on its own. However, packing your clothes for moving should be a subproject and after you’re done with it, you can be up for a reward for having completed the task as scheduled.
Braking up larger tasks into smaller, more manageable ones and setting up a reward system for yourself are two effective tricks to make your house move easier on your mind and combat the psychological effects of moving house at the same time.
One of the most powerful psychological effects of moving frequently is missing your friends after you have moved away to another part of the country or to another country altogether.
Without a doubt, saying goodbye to your best friends must be the hardest aspect of moving away. And when you reach your destination, there’s a great chance that you’ll start to miss your pals terribly and that can have an adverse effect on your mental health in general.
To stay sane after moving to a place where you know nobody, make an effort to stay in touch with your dear friends regardless of the distance between you. Nowadays, it’s easier than ever to keep in touch with people thanks to the Internet. And yet, exchanging real hand-written letters and postcards is a cool way to keep meaningful relationships alive after moving away.
Another way to minimize the psychological strain of parting with your friends is to arrange to meet up with them in person after some time, if possible. After all, when there’s a will, there’s certainly a way.
5. Make new friends after the move
While it’s critical for your mental equilibrium to stay in touch with your old pals, you’ll also need to move forward in the current stage of your life. And to do it, you’re going to need to make new friends too in the city you just moved to.
Forming new friendships may come naturally for some people (they seem to do it almost effortlessly) but for other people, it can be a real struggle. And if you happen to be an introverted person by nature, then the mere thought of making new friends in an unknown environment can fill you with serious fright.
In reality, there’s nothing too scary about making friends after moving to a new city. By using a few proven tricks, you should be able to start considering some people from your circle as your friends before you even realize it.
From using mobile apps to meet new people to bonding up with your co-workers, there are many options to choose from in order to make new friends and thus lessen the negative psychological effects of moving to a new city.
It’s super important for your mental health to establish a new routine soon after the move.
Once you find yourself in the new home, your old routine will be already lost, nowhere to be found.
For better or worse, things have changed now and it’s impossible to go back in time to experience, once more, the comfort and familiarity of your pre-move life.
Some people adapt much more quickly to new environments than others and if you’re not sure about your own level of adaptivity, then you should prioritize the establishment of a new solid routine that will help you adjust promptly to the newly-introduced changes.
Following your unpacking checklist will not help you counteract the psychological effects of a move. Instead, establish a new daily routine that will help you get into a mentally stable rhythm of doing things the way you’re used to.
Decide how you will commute to your workplace – driving your car, using public transport, riding a bicycle, or simply walking. Think about which days of the week you’ll go grocery shopping, and what time of day (or night!) you’ll dedicate to your hobby (if applicable).
Plan in advance your weekends as soon as your weekday routine has already been set. Make a list of the places you want to visit and start working on your checklist.
Bear in mind that keeping yourself busy with a comfortable daily routine is one of the most effective ways to counteract the adverse effects of moving.
7. Decorate the new place the way you want
The place you’re moving into will be completely new for you, meaning that it will feel unfamiliar and even strange to you at first. Time should help you beat that unpleasant feeling of not being welcome there but you’re likely to experience some kind of a mental shock in the very beginning.
One thing you can definitely do to improve the situation is to introduce a calming sense of familiarity into the new place. But how can you do it? It’s easier than you think.
First of all, unpack and arrange your stuff all over the new place, thus surrounding yourself with items that you know well and remind you of the old home. Do this as soon as you’ve unpacked the essentials boxes.
Also, consider arranging the furniture pieces exactly or very similar to the way they were positioned in the old home. This way, the familiar furniture configuration should give you that elusive sense of home that you’ll be looking for right after the move.
Remember that it’s entirely up to you to create a cozy and harmonious atmosphere in the new place, thus combatting effectively any negative psychological effects of moving to a new house.
8. Get to know the new town or city
Moving to a new city can turn out to be rather tough from a psychological point of view due to the fact that you’ll suddenly find yourself in a completely unknown environment. Things can be even harder for you if you don’t know anyone in the town or city you just moved to.
It’s important to understand that your adaptation period will begin as soon as you cross the threshold of the new place. That’s right – adjusting to the new home will take time and the worst thing you could do to combat the negative psychological effects of moving into a new home is to spend your time indoors – especially so if you’re on your own.
Locking yourself in the new place and refusing to go out and explore your new surroundings can be one of the typical signs of relocation depression. Instead of trying to hide inside the new house or apartment, the only way to accelerate the post-move adaptation process is to turn the unfamiliar into the familiar.
What this means in your case is to find the courage to go out and get to know the town or city you’ll be living in from that moment on.
Say YES to new adventures to accelerate the adaptation process after moving to a new city.
As mentioned above, moving to a new city in a new state is likely to be a serious step out of your comfort zone so there’s a big chance that you won’t feel right immediately after the move is complete.
In most cases, you’ll be saddened by the fact that you had to leave behind all your friends and familiar daily routine, and you’ll be worried or even scared about the unknown future ahead of you.
To regain your mental equilibrium after the move, try to be as open to new experiences as possible in an effort to shift the focus from being sorry for what you’ve lost to being glad for what you’ve gained. It’s all in the mind, actually – since the house move is already a fact and you cannot turn back time (but if you could, would you really want to?), you might as well enjoy your new life instead of constantly looking back with nostalgia.
Saying more often YES to new post-relocation adventures can be the key to having a smooth adaptation period without any bad psychological effects for you.
Luckily, you won’t have to deal with the psychological effects of moving. In most cases, though, the big changes following a house move are very likely to affect you in some way or another. You may breeze through the adaptation period without any issues at all, or you may come down with relocation depression – the powerful feeling of nostalgia over the life you no longer have.
The best thing you can do to neutralize any bad psychological effects of moving house is to give yourself more time to adjust to the new surroundings. Time does matter when you’re trying to get back on your feet after the newly introduced changes in your life.
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