Surviving Finals Week

It’s May, which means a lot of you readers out there are stressing out over finals. And for a good reason! You have 50 chapters to read, no idea what materials to look at, and three projects due on the same date of the test. How are you going to get through it all? Simple: by reading our de-stress survival guide. Don’t worry, it’s not another 300-page book to read like the one in your class. It’s just a few points to keep in mind as you get through the week. Follow these guidelines and I can guarantee a finals week without stress.

Breathe!

You’re not going to retain any information if your brain has no oxygen to work with. Stop hyperventilating about how much work you have to do and just take a deep breath. All it takes is a few seconds of tranquility to keep you mind focus. This is a must when you’ve been studying for eight hours straight and have gotten to the point where you don’t retain anything. Give yourself a break and breathe!

Find a Secluded Place

If you study best in your room, then study in your room. But I doubt that you do. You’ll probably study for five minutes until you decide to check facebook or turn on the TV just for a short break to “breathe”. Then that short break will turn into a five hour break because HBO is showing both parts of Harry Potter 7. So get out of there and find a place that’s quite on campus. There are a lot of them.

The Library

The most well-known place is the library. It’s very quiet and if you’re looking for absolute silence, go to the bottom floor. Down there it’s a sin just to clear your throat.

Lounges

Once the library closes, go to a common lounge in your dorm or find an empty room in one of the academic buildings. My favorite place is the H-Wing Auditorium. I actually stay in my floor lounge until I start nodding my head off. Then I go to the H-Wing around 1am. Once I've got a second wind from the walk, I stay up studying for a few more hours till I’m satisfied and walk back to my room.

Sleep

Obviously you’re going to have a few all-nighters, you’re a college student after all. But you have to sleep eventually, especially the night before your final. When you sleep for more than 20 minutes your mind enters a state known as R.E.M. (not to be confused with the band). During this state, your body shuts off and most of your mind too. However a little bit of your mind is still awake, recalculating and dialoging all the information you’ve obtained throughout the day. You can actually see glimpses of this process in dreams (but that is an entirely different subject). When you wake up, all that information you studied will now be freshly stored in your mind ready for retrieval when you need it. If you don’t sleep, your mind will never store that information and so you’ll just forget everything by the time you take your test.

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Get Disconnected

Unplug your TV, computer, clock, and anything else that can be even slightly distracting. Our generation is accustomed to being connected to everyone at every hour. These distractions have caused incredibly short intention spans. This issue needs be resolved in the future for your own benefit but for now, an easy way to fix this is by eliminating every means of distraction.

Don’t Plan, Act

A common mistake many students do is plan their studying time too much. This is a good concept but usually ends out badly. For one, students sometimes spend more time planning to study than actually studying. When they do study, they realize they have to study five hours and the idea of that destroys their motivation. My suggestions is don’t plan. Just study. Don’t think about how you have to get five chapters today than three tomorrow. Don’t think just do. If your main concern is work, then you'll get the work done.

That’s all you need to do! Just five simple steps that will to get you through finals week without stressing. I hope this helps you all out.