Dealing with exam stress

It’s around that time where people start to go a little bit crazy, a little (very) stressed and when everything seems too much.

I’m in my exam period now where I just seem to be in the routine of: wake up early, revise, eat, revise, eat, revise, sleep. That seems to be the done thing, but there are a few things you can do to make revision more bearable and exams less stressful for yourself.

I wrote this blog post a couple weeks ago because I know now that I just need to concentrate on revision and that kind of leads on to my first point. As much as I enjoy updating the blog and creating new content, you have to prioritise things in your life. You have to think what you’ve got going on in your life and think what needs to be done first and what needs more time spent on it. So for now, sadly, it’s more revision and mindmaps and less outfit posts and instagrams. Sigh.

And then when you’ve prioritised everything, what helps me is writing down everything you need to work towards. So when your exam is and what time for example. This helps me keep organised and less stressed, allowing me to focus on revising rather than stressing over the little things.

As I said at the start I try and wake up earlier when I have exams to prepare for. I find that if you wake up early, do plenty of revision and then go to bed at a reasonable time, you feel so much better for it. When you get loads done you just feel good and feel more inclined to do the same tomorrow. I have some days where I have so much that I just end up doing absolutely nothing and procrastinate and then feel stressed by the end of the night struggling to sleep.

If you are doing these things and you still find yourself a little bit panicked at everything you’ve got to do then try revising with a friend on your course. I think sometimes when you revise with someone you get so much more done as it doesn’t feel as much of a chore doing it and if you get stuck you can brainstorm answers between each other rather than heading to Google for an answer that will probably confuse you even more. Recently, I've been meeting up with my group and we seem to get so much more done. There are days though however, that if there's a few of you, that you might end up getting completely distracted. Stay focused!

Sometimes I’ll talk about my stress with others and more often they are feeling the exact same. I guess it’s just reassuring to hear that you’re not the only one feeling the pressure and by just talking about it and not bottling it all up, it allows you to concentrate more.

Then if all else fails, resort to endless amounts of tea and biscuits. It’s the answer to everything. But in all seriousness, if you get organised early, revise properly and stay focused you should be fine when it comes to your exam. It might be a little boring but a few weeks of revision will all be worth it in the long run.

Those are a few of my tips for dealing with exam stress and revision, I’d be interested to hear what you do to combat stress during exam time as this post is just a few of my ideas.