A survival guide: Exams edition

I’m sure we can all agree that exams (and the whole period of exam preparation) isn’t the funniest of times.

I, myself like studying and learning new stuff, but when we approach exams I always end up burned out, stressed and hating school more than ever.

After having completed quite a few exams, I’ve found some tricks that works for me, and I would love to share them with you. So without further ado, let’s get into it.

Reward yourself- A trip to a café, a massage or a marathon with your favourite movies. As long as you reward yourself once in a while (after a hard study session, when you are done with one exam (and all of them) or just when you did a great job) you will feel motivated to keep on going since you have something to look forward to
Cut down on your job- Try just focusing on the upcoming exams, your boss should understand
Associate with colour, objects, sounds or sketches- Making a fun and creative association to a subject makes it easier to remember, so try marking in fun colours or draw a sketch you will remember your subject on
Don’t overdo it- Be careful not to burn yourself out. If you do too much you might end up remembering nothing at all and stress yourself. Remember: you are only able to concentrate for about 40-45 minutes (and your focus starts falling drastically after only 18 minutes) so remember to take breaks. Try working for 45 minutes and then taking a 15-minute break.
Sleep- No you can’t just survive with 2 hours of sleep every night in your exam period (yes yes, you can SURVIVE, but is it beneficial? No not in any way)
Start early- This way you don’t have to stress about everything in the last minute and your assignments ends up making more sense than ones you made the night before
Walk- Studies have shown that light exercise is beneficial for studying and tests since it increases blood flow to your brain, improve your memory, AND your mood
Take care of yourself- I feel like I have said something like this before. If you are in a bad mood, stressed, sad or tired you won’t perform nearly as good as you would if you weren’t. So relax, give yourself a little love and remember to laugh!