How to Manage Stress during Finals

How to Manage Stress during Finals

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When the finals are approaching, you have a strange feeling in your stomach. It keeps you awake at night and you’re constantly worried. That’s called stress. As any other college student, you’re worried about the outcome. Will your efforts be enough? Will you manage to go through the entire material? What about the term papers?
The funniest thing in the world is when someone says “relax!” No matter how hard you try, you can’t just relax out of nowhere. The thoughts about the finals are worrying you, so you need a bit deeper advice in order to cope with all that stress.

We’ll give you some useful tips that will help you manage stress during finals. The important thing to remember is that you have to make an effort. Relaxation won’t come out of the blue; you have to work towards it.

1. Have a schedule
When you organize your studying progress, the goals will seem achievable. Use a calendar and mark down the exam dates. Then, plan the days you have in a way that allows you to study enough for all of them.

2. Don’t drink alcohol
You think that beer would help you relax? It won’t; it will just numb you down and you’ll feel lousy in the morning. You’ll have tons of time to party and ‘relax’ with alcohol after the exams. At this point, it’s only adding to the stress.

3. Have a studying strategy
Try studying at different parts of the day and take notes on your effectiveness. No one can tell you what the best time for studying is; you need to listen to your own organism to figure that out. If you realize that you achieve your greatest productivity levels in the mornings, then go to bed early and get up early in the morning to start studying.

If, on the other hand, you like studying at night, there’s nothing wrong in sleeping through most of the day and studying the nights away. Still, make sure to practice this habit only before exam week. Then, you’ll go back to your usual rhythm.

4. Eat well
The food you eat and the drinks you have play a huge role in your energy levels. When you eat healthy meals in specific periods of the day, you’ll have enough energy to handle the studying material. Suddenly, the stress levels will start going down.

Avoid sugar and junk food as much as possible. They make you sleepy and they reduce your intellectual capacity. Coffee is a nice stimulator, but don’t have too much of it because it will cause stress to your body.

5. Form an effective study group
If you have friends who are really committed to studying, then don’t be afraid to get into a study group. You’ll share the knowledge you have and you’ll organize yourselves to cover different parts of the material and share the notes. The studying will become much less stressful and more effective when you share the struggles with other people.

Are you ready to tap into the world of knowledge? The important thing to remember is that you’re learning valuable lessons when studying for these exams. You will need that knowledge for your future career, so that’s the main reasons why you’re making these efforts.