Gemma Spake

Literally, that was what the word for homesickness was, nostalgia.

You want to know something else interesting?

Another interesting psychology history fact?

Nostalgia is one of the most intense emotions you can experience.

It's

It's also not distinctly good or distinctly bad, but when you feel it, researchers show that you really feel it, if you know what I mean.

You feel it like nothing else, and that's what you're enduring right now.

Again, it's like a breakup.

It's like a breakup where you idealize all the good things.

You don't remember any of the bad things.

Your brain has this natural positivity bias towards the past, towards home, compared to the reality of the present, which is

very colorful and vivid and real that you're experiencing right now.

And the rose-colored glasses that we have for the past versus the accurate vision we have for the present means that the present feels a lot starker.

Essentially, what this explanation basically says is that being away from your home, even for a great thing, even for a fantastic thing,

is always initially going to mean that there will be a time where you don't have a strong place attachment that you can go home to immediately.

And that feels really threatening to your brain.

Your body is responding to that, responding to that threat, trying to process that and

And it does that by activating that stress response.

A stress response, your stress response, is basically just your body speeding things up internally to help you find a solution quicker.

Speeding up your thoughts, speeding up your nervous system, speeding up all these things.