The emotional and physiological cost of moving abroad
What are the challenges a migrant could face? 

The nervous system adaptation to the natural environment

Moving to a new place also means having to adapt to a new environment. Meaning, new climate, vegetation, and landscape. 

Your nervous system has spent years getting used to the weather and environmental characteristics of the place where you grew up. Putting your body in a new environment can make it feel non calibrated, uncomfortable, or tired. When you go back home you could have the experience of feeling regulated as if your senses are calibrated again. This sensation brings safety and calmness while the effort to physically adapt can translate into feeling unsettled and stressed.

Changes in our senses

The familiarity you feel with the sights, tastes, noises, and smells of your home country create a special emotional connection with that place. There is a number of experiences we have with our environment that create the story of our life. Some places and traditions bring up memories of the times you experienced them. They mean something closer to you since they become part of your own life story. We get used to our environment, and a sudden change in it could be something difficult to get used to. In fact, the things we become used to have helped life be more predictable, thus being immersed in a new place can inadvertently make us feel hypervigilant, stressed, or unsettled. Losing the comfort of understanding our surroundings can now be mixed with nostalgia and longing for what is lost. 

Even if you don't experience moving to a new place in this way, I believe that it will still be worth considering if losing the sense of familiarity has any influence in your emotional state if you are feeling more isolated, fearful, or lonely at any point. 

The loss of identity

The person you are is also based on how others see you. To a great extent, our identity is shaped by our relationships. You are the son/daughter of someone, the sibling or friend of someone, the person who studied at a particular school or lives in a certain area. All the things that you are have a meaning in the place you were born, but in the new country this is meaningless or is not perceived in the same way. This could face us with the challenge of having to rebuild our identity to make sense of who we are now. 

We need to build new relationships and create a new social circle to rebuild our identity, but this quest becomes harder since a new place means not only new people but also new ways of communication, new social rules. The longing for emotional connection and warmth starts clashing with the new expectations we have to learn and follow, which could make our new social environment feel frustrating and rejecting.

Your life past becomes stuck in time

Something a migrant might not have in mind is that their past life becomes somewhat "stuck". The fantasy of what would have been your life if you stayed back home stays as an imaginary possibility. There is a real break in the progression of life, and now everything changes for both yourself and your family members who now have to adjust to a life without you. 

The traditions, events, and routines that were part of your everyday life, now become something you are missing out. Since they were a normal part of your life, not being present brings up emotions you might have not were expecting or be prepared for. 

The loss of social capital

The fact that we have to rebuild our relationships means that our social network is, to a certain degree, lost or reduced. Our social capital are the people we know, our friendships, the community we belong to, the connections we have, and the people that we can rely on when facing difficulties. This is relevant to consider since finding who to trust in the new country takes more effort. For instance, choosing a mechanic or a baby sitter might no longer be as simple as tapping into an existing web of contacts. 

When moving to a new country a significant portion of our social capital is lost, which can lead us into feeling immersed in a state of survival, anxiety and sadness. However, it is true that we still can rely on significant relationships from the distance, and in the new place there might be people we already know and communities we can become part of, but we cannot underestimate the impact that reducing and changing our social capital has on us.

Navigating new social rules

As mentioned before, rebuilding your social capital can be difficult since you have to learn the ways and pace you can interact with others. For instance, lets use physical touch as an example. In Latin and Spanish cultures physical contact is accepted, and even expected, but comfort with physical touch can vary depending on the culture. For someone used to use touch in their day to day interactions, not receiving it when communicating with people could feel as if something is lacking in their social interactions, maybe feeling less fulfilled since closeness is not fully experienced. In the contrary, for someone who is not used to physical contact,  being in a place where the expectation is to be touched while interacting could feel uncomfortable and tense. It might take long time for you to accept and adapt to the expectations of your new social environment.

The loss of familiarity

All the losses and changes I have presented to you can be seen as what entails a loss of familiarity. This concept is very important because the sense of familiarity is what makes us feel more connected to the place where we live. In fact, when you encounter a familiar face or a comforting, meaningful place, your brain's internal reward and safety networks light up, releasing feel-good neurotransmitters (Dopamine, Oxytocin, Endorphins and Serotonin) which apart from evoking positive emotions it also signals us that we are safe. Therefore, the more familiar you become with the place you live in, the less lonely you could feel.

Conclusion

What your emotions say about your migration experience?

Experiencing low mood, depression, anxiety, frustration, or similar feelings, does not mean you are in the wrong place or are doing things wrong. It means you are navigating a difficult process of change that demands from you significant adaptations to the the natural and urban characteristics, the social environment, and the changes in your identity. I consider it is beneficial to take into consideration that a migration journey involves many processes and challenges we might have not considered beforehand. Acknowledging this can help us to accept the new feelings and discomfort as something which is part of a process of adaptation that we all navigate in different ways. 

Depending on the person, some places might be easier or harder to adapt to. Regardless of which one is your case, I consider that investing your energy and time to make your journey a worthwhile experience will always be a good way to approach migration. Nevertheless, accepting that a place might not be good for you is also valid, and migrating again or returning home, as hard as it can feel, is also an option you are allowed to consider. 

Yet for something so important, we receive surprisingly little guidance on how to navigate them well. Very often the effort to build a relationship seems to be focused in not losing it, avoiding rejection, ultimately making us lose ourselves in the process.

Rejection, in particular, can feel terrifying, as if it reflects our very self-worth. Although we are not isolated beings in the world, and we cannot deny that rejection hurts and can make us feel unlikeable, it is also true that one failed relationship does not define us. We are the sum of many experiences and relationships throughout our lives.

In this article, we will explore ways to navigate the building of a romantic relationship, managing the anxiety and uncertainty that naturally arise, while also identifying key signs to know if the relationship you are developing with someone is right for you.

Transparency and Openness to Change 

It is important that you can be honest about your intentions. But it is also good to acknowledge that we often don't exactly know what we want and why we want it. Do not avoid the uncertainty, welcome it and give it a place while you explore and develop a romantic relationship. 

Bear in mind that relationships evolve and intentions can change over time. There is no need to define things too soon, as you get to know the person and experience the relationship your feelings might shift or become more certain. Giving yourself and the other time to process can liberate you two from the pressure of performance and focus on genuine deeper exploration and mutual enjoyment. 

Accepting uncertainty can help you feel more comfortable about moving forward. Things can change in the future, but that is an unknown territory not worth trying to control, it is in the here and now where the foundation and direction of the relationship is shaped. Navigate the journey together with transparency and openness to change. 

Vulnerability: The Risk That Deepens Bonds

At the beginning, building a relationship is hard. There are clashes, different expectations, communication styles, and hidden fears. Even after the intial phases, new challenges start appearing.

At any stage your fears and insecurities will be triggered, and being open about it with your partner is allowing yourself to be vulnerable. Showing vulnerability takes courage, you are showing the parts of yourself that you believe are not good enough. This can feel frightening since they might be the very things that make you feel will lead to rejection and abandonment.

Opening up in this way has to be a careful decision, you should have allowed enough time to feel the relationship provides a safe and respectful space to share intimate feelings. Hence, if you allowed this time to come, and you find someone who can can hold your vulnerability and honesty with care, it actually deepens the bond, making the relationship stronger, safer, and more enjoyable. Expressing intimate feelings and thoughts actually makes others more likely to also be more open about their own. 

Preserving Individuality 

As you and your partner become closer to each other, your two worlds also start to intertwine. Your world gains new additions, but also loses and changes other parts. For instance, the way you spend your time changes, so does the choices you make and how yo prioritise things. 

However, it is important that a significant portion of the personal world of each member of the relationship can be maintained. This means that both should facilitate that activities and interests that define your individuality remain alive. Besides being a couple you are individuals and losing your individuality will carry a big toll to the relationship and your person.

Compatibility: You're on a Journey of Exploration

Think of early dating as an experiment. You are noticing if you match, if you feel comfortable, if your ways of being in the world complement each other. If things do not work out, it doesn't mean you are less, it means this was probably not a good match or not the right moment.

Intimacy goes far beyond sex. It has many layers, it involves the emotional connection you develop, the friendship you create, or the thoughts and beliefs your share in deep conversations. It is important that you can be compatible across enough of these layers to build something sustainable.

This doesn't mean you have to like everything about the other person. There is room to learn, to be accepting, to understand. But there will also be things you have to let go of, and you need to be honest with yourself. Is it worth it for you to let go of those things? Are you respecting your own values and what is meaningful to you?

To coincide with someone goes beyond mutual attraction. It can also involve:

Geographical alignment - closeness, or compatible plans to move.

Emotional availability - you could be single but not emotionally available, still healing from a previous breakup, or not in the right headspace.

Values and beliefs - religion, culture, life goals, family plans.

All these factors deserve attention and thoughtful consideration. In the long run, these factors will significantly determine whether the relationship is enjoyable and nourishing for both of you.

This is why it is important to give time to explore and navigate a relationship for as long as it is needed. Relationships can end, and that is okay. Each relationship can teach us a lot, give us joy, and guide our growth.  

Relationships Can End

Do not underestimate the power of relationships because of their uncertain and finite nature. There is beauty in the freedom of choice and change, although a difficult realisation at times, it can teach us to bear the anxiety it evokes on us.

Realising not all relationships are meant to last can be painful, but it can help us be more accepting and present to enjoy the here and now of the relationship, while putting in the dedication and care it deserves without being possessive.

Respect: The Foundation of Everything 

Finally, respect, which could be seen as the most important aspect of a relationship. Without it, a relationship cannot work healthily or joyfully. Disrespect, dishonesty, dismissal and aggressions are the right recipes for failed relationships of any kind, it takes away the cooperative aspect of a relationship. Without cooperation a relationship cannot really develop to become fulfilling and a support to navigate life challenges. 

Always have in mind how the other person could feel about your actions and words, so you can frame things sensibly and be prepared to hold your partner's pain. It is also respectful to be open to critics and observation, be ready to hear your partner's feelings defenseless, be understanding. This does not means dropping your boundaries but being open to find mutual understanding and solutions to move forward.

Why Bother to Build a Romantic Relationship?

Building a romantic relationship could be one of the most meaningful, transforming, and vulnerable experiences we can have throughout our lives. It asks us to be honest when we're uncertain, open when we're afraid, and patient when we're eager for answers. It asks us to explore compatibility without judgement, and to uphold respect as the non-negotiable foundation.

There is no perfect formula. No guarantee of outcome. But by approaching relationships with awareness, transparency, and care, you give yourself the best chance of finding someone who truly fits, and of becoming someone who can truly show up.

And whether a relationship lasts a lifetime or a season, the capacity to love and be loved, to be vulnerable and be held, to grow and let grow, that stays with you. That is never wasted.

Nowadays distractions are everywhere, convenient devices open endless windows for learning, productivity, and entertainment, but these possibilities also challenge our brains to levels of efficiency it cannot cope with. Even though multitasking seems the new standard to engage with life, it can explain why we could feel there is no mental energy or motivation do things that matter to us. 

Before you feel alarmed for your incapability to concentrate properly, worrying for giving in too easily to distractions, it is key to better understand how attention, or attentional mechanism of our brain works.

This article will help you understand how to better concentrate and have mental energy to engage in activities that are relevant to your life (like learning a new skill, socialising, reading, studying, or being creative). It will also explain why shifting our attention constantly can prevent you from engaging fully with life. 

Why Attention Matters

If you don't pay attention, things cannot be retained. You cannot really engage fully with life experiences. Attention is the gateway to memory, learning, and meaningful engagement. Yet most of us treat it as an infinite resource rather than the delicate mechanism it truly is.

The Warm-Up Period

Concentration requires something most of us don't give it: a transition period. You need time to warm up your attentional mechanisms. Around 5 minutes are needed for our brain to enter focus mode. If you don't set the right environment and allow time for your brain to settle, you won't get into a good attentional state.

Every time you get distracted, it resets all the mechanisms that are trying to focus on a task. This means that quick glance at your phone doesn't just cost you a few seconds, it costs you another 5 minutes of re-entry.

What is a Good Environment for Concentration?

• No phone in sight (not just on silent, out of reach) 
• Quiet surroundings or intentional background sound 
• Good lighting that doesn't strain your eyes 
• Comfortable temperature 
• Being properly fed and hydrated (not bloated)
• And very importantly: No scrolling or binge-watching before a task where you need to focus.

Your Attention is Limited

When you scroll on social media or binge-watch episodes as a form to "rest", it uses a lot of your brain energy without you realising it. Processing that many images, videos, sounds, and content actually depletes you, leaving you unable to focus and engage properly.

Think of your attention like a battery. Every notification, every swipe, every video consumes a small amount of charge. By the time you sit down to do meaningful activities, you're running on empty.

When your brain energy is low, trying to do something that requires concentration won't be as productive and satisfying as you might have expected. This doesn't only apply to studying, it also includes socialising, dancing, exercising, reading, or any other activity you enjoy. A depleted attention system means a depleted experience of life itself.

You Need to Rest and Recharge

We are constantly overwhelmed with information without realising it. It is very easy to have something to do and shift our attention from one task to the next. Checking messages, your shopping basket, notifications, emails, booking something, or googling the answer for urgent-not-so-urgent question.

This constant task-switching trains your brain to be restless. It reinforces the habit of distraction until sustained focus feels impossible. In fact, it is proven that multitasking makes the experience less satisfying. The solution isn't more willpower, it's more intentional rest. True breaks where you do nothing, walk without your phone, spend time in nature, or let your mind wander are moments when your attentional resources replenish.

Understanding Resistance

Concentration and learning creates resistance (a tendency to avoid what takes away our mental energy for preservation). It doesn't matter how passionate we are about a subject or area, learning will require repetitive and sometimes boring tasks to retain what is important. We need to overcome resistance so we can later enjoy the outcomes of our learning sessions.

Feeling resistance is not a sign that you shouldn't or can't engage. In fact, resistance is often a sign that you're on the right track, unless this resistance is a consequence of having depleted your mental energy with distractions. In this case, you need to rest. 

Bringing It All Together

Your attention is not broken, it's overwhelmed. It's not weak, it's depleted. And it's not incapable of focus. It's simply untrained in a world designed to fragment it.

The path to better focus isn't about punishing yourself for distractions or forcing longer study sessions through sheer will. It's about:

• Respecting the warm-up - giving yourself those 5 minutes to settle in 
• Protecting your environment - removing the things that pull you away 
• Conserving your attentional battery - being mindful of what you consume 
• Resting intentionally - recharging so you can show up fully 
• Expecting resistance - and not letting it stop you

Every time you choose to protect your attention, you're choosing to engage more fully with your life. You're choosing depth over distraction, presence over fragmentation, and meaningful engagement over passive consumption.

Start small. Pick one task today where you'll protect your focus. Give it the 5-minute warm-up. Remove the distractions. And notice how different it feels to truly pay attention.

In this article I will focus on the impact of Social Media apps (or scrolling portals) as we dive into the reasons why their free-to-use quality could explain their harmfulness. We have recently been witnessing how some countries are banning this platforms to users under 16, and it is becoming more common to hear researchers and social justice advocates to warn us about the problems and controversies of this industry. I am not saying this platforms are inherently bad, but there is definitely something that has to be changed in them.

As I mentioned before, the reason behind these platforms being free can be associated with many of the negative consequences they are having on us. These apps have to make revenue somehow, and it is by making the experience entertaining, novel, and engrossing, or in other words, they have to be addictive. Social media portals are designed in a way that can drag our attention for hours without us realising it. Is like we lose agency over our decisions once these apps are opened

Particularly, social media works with algorithms, a function these platforms have to constantly measure the way we use them and what retains our attention for longer. The result is an endless input of images and information that makes us stare at a screen for hours. 

Having this in mind, I am now going to highlight the negative impact the excessive usage of our smartphones can have on us if addictive platforms are taking most of our attention.

Using our Phones for Social Media has Negative Consequences

Valuable Time Vanishes: I would say this could be one of the most worrying consequences. Times does not go back and the time we spend on these apps leave us with no relevant or meaningful experiences, everything stays in a virtual world. Since what we engage with is an overload of  brief content, our brains cannot retain the disproportional amount of information is receiving, not only for the quantity but also the lack of emotional value it has. As a result, a significant portion of our days vanishes as if nothing memorable happened, making us feel even more that "time goes too fast now".

Capacity to Pay Attention Reduces: To pay attention our brains actually need a lot of energy, and this energy is limited. The areas of our brain dedicated to make our attentional skills work become exhausted after being exposed to so many different images, videos, and text. Each time you scroll, different areas of our brain have to be activated for us to make sense of what we see. Once our attentional resources are depleted, engaging in a demanding or important tasks like studying, socialising, or reading, becomes daunting. We do not have more energy, it needs time to be replenished. 

Increase of Negative Feelings: You probably have noticed that in certain occasion after using a social media app for some time you could be left experiencing negative emotions, or even have participated in a text rage within a comments section. In fact, the algorithm of this platforms are designed to keep us the longer possible, and turns out that humans feel very drawn to information that is controversial, fatalistic, divisive, or pessimistic. It is easier for us to form negative feelings and react to them than developing positive feelings (like trust, happiness, comfort, acceptance). As a result, our tendency to promptly react to what makes us feel anger, disappointment, disapproval, or fear, is interpreted by the algorithm as the kind of content you want to interact with, even some content creators use this tendency for their benefit as "click bait" and "rage bait". As a result, what was meant to be a time to relax became a trigger for anxiety, low mood, or irritability. 

Discomfort with our own lives: Finally, spending time scrolling exposes us to a disproportionate amount of comparisons with other peoples' lives and opinions that can inevitably make us question if the way we are living and the way we look is "normal" or acceptable. Content in these platforms become a conglomerate of millions of worldviews and lifestyles, but when these are combined with the need to gain visibility, exaggerations and partial glimpses of others' realities inadvertently become points of comparison which are often unrealistic and harmful to us. 

Despites the negative impact these platforms are having on us, I cannot deny that it is true that social media has also improved some aspects of our lives. We can have access to so much information and reach others to grow social circles, businesses, and social causes. However, it seems like the cost to pay for scrolling can be very high if we are not careful, it is paid in our attention, our mood, and our time.

Not having any kind of restriction or awareness over the way we use social media can deteriorate the meaningfulness and satisfaction that we are trying to build around our lives. It is important that you observe and reflect on the ways you use your social media accounts, actively trying to find ways to regain control over what you consume and how you consume it. 

In this article you will understand the biological hardwire behind what makes humans experience loneliness and why it can be seen as a "Paradox": A mechanism that drives us away but also pulls us back to the social world. At the end you will learn some actionable steps you can take to overcome loneliness. 

Before we dive deeper into this subject, it is important to differentiate social isolation from loneliness. Social isolation is when a person has few or no social interactions, while loneliness is how the person feels about the quality and frequency of their social interactions. Therefore, a person that has few social interactions does not necessarily feels lonely.  

Feeling Loneliness is Subjective 

A person needs to feel happy about the quantity (number of interactions) and the quality (enjoyment of this interactions) to feel fulfilled. If a person is not satisfied with one or the other, they can start feeling lonely. 

Why our Brains Make us Feel Loneliness? 

The answer could be ingrained in our DNA. Our brain is built in a way that sets an alarm when we are lacking the necessary social interactions that can secure our survival. We are social beings and our existence depends on how well we function as a group. Sometimes we can feel loneliness creeping in, it feels as if something is wrong and uncomfortable. We could even start questioning how likeable we are, or assume people around us do not want to mix with us. 

Research on the biology of social connection has found that experiencing loneliness can lead to an hyperalert state. It can make a person feel stressed, worried, and alarmed, creating a sense of danger. This seems to be related with the fact that this could be perceived as a threatening situation, it means we have been separated from our group and now we are more vulnerable. It looks like our brain says "if we have separated from the group, it means we are not safe, I need to be careful".

Therefore, although feeling loneliness can lead to irritability and worry, it also mobilises us to socialise and find a group to dissipate loneliness' uncomfortable emotional state. 

Loneliness Can Lead to Depression

Things get complicated when our intentions to socialise are fruitless. If we do not find the amount and kind of social interaction we expect, depression starts to grow making it more difficult to find the energy and motivation to put effort into socialising. At this point seeing a professional in mental health is recommended.

How to Navigate and Overcome Loneliness?

Now that we know this, we can prevent loneliness from developing into a depression or generalised anxiety.