Are you about to tear your hair out because of finals? Do you wake up in the middle of the night with an anxiety attack, gripping your math textbook because you really need to pass this semester? Well you are not alone! Here are a few tips to keep the stress level down and prepare for finals.
1. TRY NOT TO FREAK OUT
I know it seems really hard sometimes when your entire grade, life and future are riding on that ONE test, but seriously try to STAY CALM. Finals are super high pressure, but panicking and over-thinking the test will not help you study at all. You need to sit down, take it slow and turn that nervous energy into productivity.
2. DON’T PROCRASTINATE
Everyone’s guilty of it, don’t even try to deny. Get off facebook and stop skyping your friends who are procrastinating. You just need to FOCUS. Start early so you don’t have to last minute cram and you can absorb more information into your brain. Plan ahead and have a study schedule.
3. GET INTO YOUR ZONE
Find a place that you feel comfortable studying in… but not too comfortable. It is never a good idea to study on your bed with a heated blanket. But try to find a room where you can study without being distracted. Put on your dubstep and try to get into your zone where you can really concentrate.
-Also a note about study groups: Sometimes they are really effective, but sometimes they suck up a kajillion hours and lead to other activities such as baking cookies, climbing walls and singing karaoke. In my experience, study parties NEVER work and it’s always my friends’ fault… mostly. But overall, they are a terrible idea if you expect to get anything done.
4. TALK TO YOUR TEACHERS
You need to communicate with your teachers and ask them what you should expect. You can get all the help you need from a teacher. Ask for a study guide, ask for clarification on a problem. They want you to succeed, so talk to them. If you know what to expect on the final, it can be a lot less stressful.
5. STUDY YOUR NOTES
Don’t try to read the whole textbook before your final. A lot of the new, detailed information you won’t need anyways, and probably won’t remember the next day. Instead, look back at chapter summaries and your notes, and try to create a study guide with all the basic concepts that you’ve learned this semester.
6. GET SOME SLEEP
Put the books down, put on the PJ’s and crawl into bed – without your physics book! Trust me, it is way more worth it to get a little sleep, like 5 hours at least, than cram for an extra two hours, show up to school with craters underneath your eyes and have a sleep deprived eye twitch the whole day. This is currently happening to me, which is bad because I need to see out of both eyes. It is better to get a couple hours more sleep that try to memorize anymore.
7. TAKE TIME TO RELAX
Take time to do something for yourself. Human beings can’t study all the time 24/7 because we are not robots. Make sure to take care of yourself and your body and not burn yourself out. Eat healthy meals. Try not to drink too much caffeine. Take a bubble bath. But this is relaxing time – don’t turn it into procrastinating time. There is a very fine line, so set a time limit on your study breaks.
I hope this was helpful you hardworking high schoolers. Good luck!