How to Stay Sane in America, According to My European Husband

Practical advice from a confused newcomer

My husband moved from his home country of Denmark, ranked the Second Happiest Country on Earth, to the U.S. two and a half years ago, landing just a few months before the COVID outbreak.

Virus or no virus, he quickly learned that, while cute Europeans are busy measuring their happiness levels, here in America, we’re just trying to keep it together and not lose our sh*t, fighting for both our survival and our sanity.

Success in the U.S. is not measured in happiness and the common good; it’s measured in stuff and outdoing your neighbor. In our dog eat dog country, every man is for himself. And that is a recipe for insanity.

But, sentiments aside, here are a few practical tips from my husband on staying sane in this weird country of ours.

Don’t read (American) news

During his first few months in America, my husband couldn’t get enough of American television. It was exotic, sensational, and highly addictive. Yet he quickly learned that in America, it’s not news, it’s “anxiety reports.”

“It seems like the only purpose of TV or newspaper reporting in the U.S. is to give you anxiety,” my husband noticed.

After a few months of following the Los Angeles and New York Times, he has given up and went back to reading Danish newspapers and BBC. He realized that American media was stress-inducing even in the best of times and became pretty much unbearable during COVID.

“Even if nothing bad is happening, they’ll find something to scare people with,” my husband concluded after reading the New York Times.

“It’s like people here are always under some threat. If it’s not Russians, it’s germs, or terrorism, or white privilege, or Trump’s return. It’s hard being an American,” he laughed.

Learning that U.S. media wasn’t good for his mental health, my husband wished that more people here would understand the same.

“America would be a better place if more Americans watched less television and formed more of their own opinions about the state of the world,” he concluded.

Get a pair of noise canceling headphones

It took my husband no time to find out that America is a very loud country. What made it worse was coming from a country that was very quiet by default, with great respect paid to quietness inside and out. Less noise equals less stimulation and more brain space for your own thoughts.

The constant yelling, banging, beeping, and rattling of everything in America quickly began to drive my husband crazy.

“They’re either trying to drown out people’s thoughts in America, or stimulate them or both,” he thought out loud.

The worst part is that people here don’t seem to mind all the noise, as my husband observed. They’re more than happy to contribute with their own loud conversations in public. And then there is the excessive honking, unnecessarily loud sirens, music blasting in stores and cafes, even self-check-out registers and ATMs that beep too loudly.

Just spend half an hour in the middle of your local Home Depot (as my husband often does) and you’ll understand what he’s talking about.

“Does being loud mean being visible?” my husband wondered.

“Or is it the only way for people in America to feel important?” he concluded.

Either way, there’s something sad about a country where banging and yelling is the best way to assert yourself.

Find your community and stick to it

My husband left his tiny-spot-on-the-map home country of Denmark to arrive in a place that might as well be its own planet (for reasons that go beyond geography). To a Dane who’s used to crossing his land in one four-hour trip that was a scary proposition.

He quickly learned that to stay sane in America, it’s better to stay local.

“There are so many crazy people in this country that you have to find your like-minded community to survive,” my husband discovered.

So used to this fact, I forgot that, indeed, landing in the wrong place with the wrong people in America can seriously screw up your life.

“Luckily, there’s something for everyone here,” my husband noticed, pointing out how many microcosms we’ve seen while traveling across cities and across the country.

“In America, no matter how right, left, crazy, eccentric, rich or poor you are there’s a community somewhere out there for you,” he concluded.

Keep on walking

Coming from a tiny country where the main mode of transportation is a bicycle, my husband had a lot to learn about car culture so essential to the U.S. His favorite discovery so far is the good old “drive-thru.”

“It’s scary how much Americans don’t like to be inconvenienced even a tiny bit,” my husband commented while watching a drive-through line at Starbucks in the middle of the day.

He was even more puzzled when he learned that we always got our coffee faster by using a walk-up window.

“They’d rather wait longer in line without leaving their car than be bothered to walk a bit and get some fresh air,” my husband noticed.

“That’s bad news for their bodies and for the environment,” he concluded.

We pledged to never become car zombies and, luckily, found one of the few cities in California (Santa Monica) where walking and biking are more popular than driving. And that, according to my husband, is the key to staying sane in America.

Don’t get sick

For all the fame the American medical establishment gets, my husband learned very quickly that a major part of staying sane in our country is staying healthy. More than in any other developed country, in America, getting sick means dealing with excruciating bureaucracy, endless wait, and complicated bills.

“America is the only country where you might end up even more sick after going to the doctor’s office, from stress alone,” my husband noticed.

Not a fan of medical check-ups in general, in the U.S. my husband won’t set a foot in a doctor’s office unless it’s an emergency. And with two children and a newborn, we had plenty of those.

“What’s the point?” he says, “They’ll just prescribe you more medication you don’t need.”

You can read more about my husband’s experiences with the U.S. medical system here.

And keep laughing

Keeping it together in America has never been more challenging than in the last two years. But, thanks to my European husband, I’ve learned that the best defense against all the craziness is a sense of humor.

“You can’t take America seriously. If you do, you’ll get depressed. Just keep laughing,” my husband prescribed.

And that is the best advice I can give to anyone.