The Self-Destruct Funnel.
Powerlessness, fatigue, productivity at zero. The signature theses of "why this is so and what to do. We greatly underestimate the complexity of daily routines and the importance of automatisms. At home, everyone's routines were fine-tuned. We didn't think about how to go to the kitchen and get food and hundreds of other small tasks. In a new place, it takes at least a few weeks to establish these routines. It's extra work for the brain, it's trivial and requires rest.
If you consciously take apart all these routines, some of them can be simplified and adaptation can be accelerated. Another language environment. Language is a very complex information structure that requires powerful brain resources. And it is processed by two different memory systems: there is a big difference between knowing the language (remembering words and constructions) and habitually using the language (using words and constructions is recorded in the procedural memory and becomes as automatic as going from the bed to the fridge in the native house). When we find ourselves in a new language environment, it takes up a huge amount of resources. And it can take a year or even several years to become fully accustomed to it.
Any means of reproducing the atmosphere at home can stabilize and support. This essentially means that your brain is already a few hours a day intensely engaged in work tasks (language learning). You'll have to factor those few hours into your standard work schedule and take away some other tasks. Chances are then the puzzle of your actual productivity will come together quite differently.
At home, we had a number of needs automatically met that we weren't even used to noticing. In the new place, they are not being met. But since we are not used to paying attention to them, we just live like that. But unmet needs are separate mental processes. They are distracting and fatiguing. It should analyze: what you had at home, which is not now. For example: the rising sun guaranteed an easy rise. Or it was dark and quiet at night, and you did nothing for that - it was just such a neighborhood. There was a bathroom, and a shower in the new place. Going to the store was at the same time a walk among the greenery.
What important feelings and states did you experience? If there's something you can do for their enjoyment in the new place, it's likely to add a lot to your resource.
We seem to have a separate need to have our own home. Animals behave differently on their own and on neutral territory. Staying away from home requires additional emotional resources and is tiring
Even if you don't plan to be rooted in a new place for long and want to return home soon, the "own nest" resource is not something to be squandered. Any ways you can replicate the atmosphere of home can stabilize and support. Objects, colors, smells, sounds.
The need for control. The fact that you are out of the house involuntarily is very important and critical for many. But focusing on that fact is not adaptive. It is more effective to choose all aspects of life that you can affect in the here and now and take control of them. Feeling personally in control of your own life stirs up your dopamine systems, stabilizes your psyche significantly, and gives you motivation to take action.
10.05.2022
