As the academic year quickly comes to a close, exam season has rolled around again.
While you may begin to feel extremely overwhelmed, clear and strategised preparation, paired with mood-boosting activities, such as exercise and sleeping, can help you perform to the best of your ability when necessary.
Following the tips below, you will find yourself less tired and ready to take on anything this exam season:
Start early and create a plan
Many of you will have multiple exams, so it is extremely important that you prioritise your time accordingly.
The best way to do this could be to create a full plan of what modules and lesson you will go over, and when.
By managing your time effectively, you will be able to pay closer attention to the more complicated modules and topics, allowing for extra time to review the content and make the most out of your limited revision time.
In your plan, you should also consider scheduling regular breaks. This will help you maintain mental clarity and focus, as a decent, structured break can be significant to reducing mental fatigue.
Having a well-ordered plan will help you to stay on track, allowing you to approach your exams with confidence and readiness.
Stay organised
With so much happening at once, exam season can get extremely overwhelming.
Along with scheduling your preparation time, you should ensure that your revision notes are clean and up to date.
It is important that you are not distracted by exterior sources. Try to put your phone on Do Not Disturb or restrict your screen time.
This will assure that you are not mindlessly attempting to retain the academic information, and will give you more structure to your day, as you have your scheduled break time that you can use your phone.
“A 2015 study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology concluded that even the buzz or sound effects of phone notifications are enough to create significant distractions in your brain.” – Taking A Break By Looking At Social Media Doesn’t Help Your Mind Reset, A New Study Says
By creating a focused study environment, you can boost both productivity and retention, ensuring you’re fully prepared when exam day arrives.
Actively engage
Studying is more than just reading what is on a page.
To properly study and fully retain information for extended periods of time, you may need to find a way to incorporate active recall into your study sessions. This could be anything from flashcards, to mind-mapping, or partnered teaching activities.
Active recall is one of the most beneficial forms of revision as it forces you to remember facts from memory, rather than just passively reading from a page. This enhances long-term retention and can make you much more efficient under exam conditions because you have strengthened your memory links.
Practice exam papers are also highly recommended because not only do you have to engage active recall, but they also familiarise you to the format of the questioning, and how to appropriately answer exam questions.
By actively engaging with the material, you transform your study sessions into effective, memory-boosting exercises that leave you better prepared for both exams and real-world application.
Don’t ignore your mental health
One of the most important tips on this list is to ensure that you maintain good mental health.
While this may seem impossible due to the stress and challenges you are facing, you should persevere and attempt to alleviate this stress.
It is advised that you take purposeful breaks, dedicated to boosting your morale.
This does not involve scrolling through social media, as this causes a depletion in mental energy. Therefore, it is a good idea to schedule longer breaks that you can do something more productive – such as go to the gym, a sporting class or go for a walk.
“A 10–15‐min brisk walk was found to reduce feelings of tiredness and increased feelings of energy.” – Comparison of rest‐break interventions during a mentally demanding task – PMC
These breaks are extremely important as it gives your brain a break from constantly working and going into overdrive. When you are extremely overwhelmed, it can be extremely difficult to stay motivated, and this means that it takes an increased amount of effort to maintain a good level of performance and stay invested in a task.
It is also very important to keep your basic needs steady – ensure that you are eating properly and have your structured sleep pattern.
Keeping this routine will help reduce fatigue so you are more likely to pay attention to your workload.
Stay positive
While positivity may seem like an overused tip, it truly is one of the best resources for relieving anxiety and boosting your overall well-being.
Stress and anxiety can hinder cognitive function, so it is important to do everything in your ability to reduce this.
Positivity increases motivation as it enforces an attitude of self-belief, so you are more likely to stay resilient when the work gets tough.
Having a calmer and clearer mind will help you to engage more deeply with the material and will therefore make you feel a better sense of accomplishment.
If you are struggling to stay motivated, you may need to adjust your studying schedule to break modules and topics down into manageable chunks – this will help because you will not burn yourself out as quickly and cause mental depletion.
Positivity creates a positive feedback loop – the more you stay positive, the more capable and confident you feel, and reinforces the belief that you are adept.
If you have followed all of the previous steps, it should be clear to you that you are prepped and ready, and positivity should come easy!
