With finals season upon us, most university students are cramming to ace their final exams. With long days of studying for multiple exams, it can be hard to keep a healthy-balanced lifestyle. We’re all guilty of not being the best caretakers of our bodies at this time but who can blame us with 12+ hours a day studying in the library? Below are eight things we are all guilty of doing during finals and if you’re not guilty, well, you’re probably lying.
1. Getting less than eight hours of sleep
Not only are we all guilty of getting less than eight hours of sleep but most of us are also guilty of getting less than six, five, maybe four hours of sleep. Staying at the library until all hours of the night just to go home and sleep for a few hours before coming back bright and early in the morning is routine. We’re all doing it because we think we need excessive amounts of time to study for finals, but in reality we’re just tiring ourselves out more and not letting our brains sleep.
2. Drinking an unhealthy amount of coffee
Many studies have shown that drinking more than four cups of coffee a day may be detrimental to one’s physical health. However, during exams I feel as though that rule does not apply. The amount of coffee consumed on a university campus during finals is probably enough to provide for a small island. It may not be the best for our health, but honestly, that’s the only way we can get through functioning on the previously mentioned four hours of sleep.
3. Not eating a single fruit or vegetable
I’m not saying any of us are great eaters on a regular basis but come exam season, eating habits go straight down the drain. It’s so much easier to grab a bagel from Tim Hortons or get a burger from Harvey’s rather than actually cooking yourself a meal. Food that is satisfying and quick to consume is the way to go during finals, even if it’s not the best for our health.
4. Procrastinating
Even though we are all stressed out of our minds and know we have 5 exams to study for, sometimes you find yourself taking a BuzzFeed quiz to find out what kind of sandwich you are or browsing the webpages of Aritzia. Especially during winter finals, it’s hard not to browse possible Christmas list items or online shop for your friends and family. Although this is definitely not productive, I believe that sometimes you just need to stop working for a minute to let yourself de-stress.
5. Getting zero exercise
All exercise plans go completely out the window during exams. Maybe it’s because you can’t justify working out when you should be studying or maybe it’s because you are already drained from 12 hours of sitting in the library. Either way, working out is not something that is common during exams and I have come to accept that fact.
6. Stressing out
Final exams, final essays and final projects all call for a giant ball of stress. It’s hard not to get overwhelmed when finals are usually worth a big portion of your grade and are the determining factor for how you end the course. Although we’re all aware that stressing ourselves out does no good, sometimes you just need to cry and have a meltdown in order to get back to normal. A little bit of stress is good for your brain experts say, but final exams defiantly surpass that “little bit.”
7. Re-wearing the same clothes twice (or three times)
Nobody has time to do laundry during exams. We barely have time to brush our hair and showering is a whole other story. So what if you’ve worn the same sweatpants to the library for the past three days? Who cares if your sweater has a coffee stain on it from last night? Nobody is looking at how you dress in the library and nobody has time to remember if you wore that outfit twice.
8. Googling “How to get a job without an education”
After a solid 12 hours of studying in a crowded library and still not understanding or retaining any information, thoughts of dropping out and travelling the world become all too real. Who cares if I don’t have a university degree? Steve Jobs did it! So did Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Ralph Lauren. However, then we realize that we are probably not as smart as any of the previously mentioned billionaires and our friends/family would kill us if we dropped out. So we close the Google page “How to get rich without a university degree” and get back to the long hours of studying.