Culture Stress

People who live in foreign countries experience the stress of coping up with a new culture. Professionals who are on a long vocation, or even those who have immigrated to a new country feel the need to assimilate into a new culture.

These people are frequently subject to culture shocks that are far from digestible at the outset.

There is always the pressure to strike a balance from one’s inherent culture that has been imbibed from an early age to the new culture that is totally alien to one’s belief systems, and psychological constitution. Some people may find the difficulty of not getting that ‘at home’ feeling even years after settling into a foreign country. This invariably leads to stress and feelings of ennui, frustration and anxiety.

Symptoms of culture stress…
- Feelings of helplessness and lack of motivation. Getting angered easily and without provocation. Feeling extremely homesick, and getting irrepressible longings of going back home.
- Total isolation from citizens of the foreign country; Shyness and incompatibility in social gatherings; Unable to invoke the nuances of changes in social behavior in a foreign country.
- Anger towards citizens of the foreign country; Resentment towards the foreign culture; a tendency to mock and ridicule and draw incongruous comparisons with respect to the foreign country.
- Extreme thoughts of suicide or homicide
- Decline in interest towards food, and other physiological activities
- Alcoholism and substance abuse

Causes of culture stress…
- Total incompatibility towards a foreign culture can aggravate culture stress. This happens to people who are involved with people-facing activities in a foreign country.
- A significant variation in belief systems that is very far from the average belief system of the new culture. For example, a religious and orthodox person, might find it difficult to accept a free and open culture, that is lenient towards things like sexual orientation, preferences, relationships etc.
- Language problems can pose a potentially stressful problem for a person living in a foreign country. Lack of knowledge of the regional language can make the person incommunicado. This can also cause culture stress.

Ways to deal with culture stress…
- Acceptance of ground realities can be the most liberating of ways to deal with it. Don’t suffix any emotional attachment to cultural attributes of a foreign region.
- Try to learn the language of a foreign country. Learn to appreciate the language, and try to learn in small baby steps.
- Make friends with civilians of the foreign country. For example, if you are an American in Africa, it helps to make friends with some Africans.