How to Protect Yourself from Culture Shock – learn to identify it and how to prevent it by using several powerful techniques.

Travelers may experience culture shock when visiting a foreign country. They move from a familiar environment where they can function easily into an unfamiliar environment where everyday functioning becomes a challenge. They become a stranger in a strange land.

This "shock" usually occurs with longer vacations (weeks and months) after the novelty of the vacation destination has worn off.

Causes:

• Unfamiliarity with the new country.

• feeling “like a fish out of water” within a new culture.

• Inability to speak the native language fluently or difficulty understanding the idioms.

• Not knowing how to behave properly in the new culture (gestures, facial expressions, traditions etc.).


Symptoms may include:

• Physical signs like headaches, sleeping difficulties, loss of appetite etc.

• Feelings of anxiety, surprise, disorientation, uncertainty, confusion etc.

• Dislike or disgust for the new culture.


How to Protect Yourself Against Culture Shock

1) Learn about your destination, the local culture and a few words of the language before your departure.

2) Talk to others who have visited your destination.

3) Try to learn some social survival skills like how to address people in different social groups and how gender roles affect social relationships.

4) Be flexible and adaptable. Keep an open mind during your vacation. Recognize that there are different ways to live your life and that no one way is really better than another.

5) Gradually immerse yourself in the new culture.

6) Stay calm; observe and learn.

7) Avoid cultural misunderstandings. Do not offend others or be offended by others.

8) Remember that you are only traveling and that your immersion is not permanent.

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