Finals are finally here – less than a week of class left. Everyone is stressed about studying and doing well on their exams. The library stays open all night and pulling an all-nighter seems like a very likely and unfortunate option. So how can you stay relaxed, study and still pass all of your finals?

The answer that everyone tells you is to get a lot of sleep, eat a good breakfast and to arrive on time to your exam. But if we’re being honest with ourselves, it’s a struggle to do all three of those things on a regular day. So how can we do it during the most stressful week in college? It’s near impossible, and not being able to do it stresses us out even more.

It isn’t too difficult to do well on your finals, granted you went to most of the lectures and listened too.

The first step is to find a method of studying that is effective and works for you. There are some people who can read through a chapter and retain all of the information. Other people need to make notecards and study for weeks in advance. I find it easier to make studying fun, which sounds impossible, but it isn’t. I’ll make a game into studying vocab words or give myself a gummy worm for every 100 words I write in a paper.

The second step is to make a schedule for yourself. Write out what you need to do for any paper you need to write or any presentation you have to do, and in what order they are due. This will help you organize and prioritize your assignments and study times.

Be sure to schedule breaks in for yourself, they help you refocus and stay on track when you continue to study. Also, make sure you alternate subjects throughout each day. It’s easy to want to cram for your first, or most difficult, final. That will actually hurt you more than it can help you.

Stressing out about one subject will make you focus all of your attention onto that specific subject. It might seem beneficial at the time, but it will actually stress you out when it comes to the next subjects you have to study. Planning your time out and setting aside two hours per subject can really help your mind switch gears a little and still function.

The last step is to find little tricks that help you out. There are hints and tips all over the Internet that can enhance your study times. Chewing mint gum while you study a subject and while you take the test can help you remember things better. Don’t take Adderall if it isn’t prescribed to you – it can make you think differently and it’s dangerous to take if you don’t know how you’ll react to it.

It is of course also important to get sleep, but make sure it isn’t more than you’re used to on an average day, because that can make you groggy and drowsy for the exam.

Just remember that finals don’t have to be stressful. Good luck!

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