While I don’t think anyone needs another reminder that exam season is coming up, I do believe that one to focus on your well-being is due. Stress is normal and healthy, but sometimes, it reaches a point where it sets you back instead of motivating you to accomplish your goals, and a change is necessary. Whether it be through changing your study habits or doing little things throughout your day to improve your mood, the following tips will help you have the least stressful exam season yet.
1. Plan.
When you have five exams, a couple of assignments, extra-curricular responsibilities, and other commitments, you can quickly become overwhelmed. It’s difficult to know where to start and what to do when all this information is cluttered in your head. Hence, take twenty minutes out of your day to just sit and plan. It can be in a notebook, an agenda, your calendar app or even your notes app. Begin by noting all the deadlines, then fill each day with a few goals you want to accomplish. This can be anything from sending out an email to re-watching lectures. Write everything down. You have now unloaded all the information weighing down your brain and put it into a visual format. Looking at all the information on paper can be overwhelming, but it’s quite the opposite. It’s better to focus on the goals to be completed for the present day instead of looking ahead a week and worrying about the future. After completing the day’s first goal, it will feel like a relief and provide motivation to move on to the next.
2. Know what to study.
Knowing exactly what to study can be the biggest problem and stress inducer for some. However, there are a few things that can be done to make yourself feel more confident about the content you have studied being right. Firstly, one advantage of final exams is that you have already become familiar with your professors’ testing style from the midterm or any other previous tests. Think back to your midterm and remember what type of content was tested. If more broad and theoretical-based questions were posed, it would only make sense to study minuscule details such as dates or interesting facts if advised by your professor. Studying irrelevant details will add to the amount of information your brain is trying to encode and, in turn, stress you out further. Secondly, review sheets can be extremely useful in organizing what content needs to be studied in a to-do list format. However, not all professors provide one. This is when you must take the initiative to create your own. Like the planning stage, sit down and take twenty minutes to create a detailed review sheet including every chapter, important readings and anything else your professor has previously mentioned to be necessary for the exam.
3. Start the day off right and end the day off right.
Apart from studying tips to help reduce stress, improving your overall mood with some daily habits will make your relationship with studying a whole lot more positive. Start the day off right. Take some time for yourself to do your morning skincare routine, make a delicious breakfast, sip on your iced coffee, and watch a quick YouTube video. You’re now in a good mood and relaxed to begin taking on your study goals for the day. Throughout the day, add in a few rewards for yourself to look forward to after completing a certain amount of your goals. These little rewards can be anything from a fifteen-minute Facetime call with your best friend to indulging in that ice cream leftover in the freezer. As the day goes by, know when to end it. Many people get lost in a bad habit of studying until 3 am when their eyes are half open, and their brain is inching closer to sleep mode. If you wake up at a reasonable time and spend the hours of the day efficiently, I promise you you’ve done enough, and the couple of hours of the night you drag on studying are not worth it. End the day off right. Finish up studying at a time when you can spare an hour for self-care. You can do this by lighting up a candle while you take a warm shower and do your nighttime skincare routine. Get in bed, watch an episode of your favourite comfort show, and go to sleep.
By now, I hope you have a clear idea of the steps you can take in order to have the least stressful exam season yet. Plan, know what to study, and focus on self-care. Remember, when you’re sitting in the exam room watching the clock tick until your professor says, “You may now begin,” all you can do is trust that you have done enough.