The start of the Summer season might mean good things for your tan and your holiday countdown, but this season also brings with it the dawn of end-of-year exams across UK universities.
A month filled with uncertainty – namely around whether or not you need a coat on your walk down to the shop or around the park – in this blog we’re sharing a plethora of tips on how to manage exam stress and anxiety this April.
And it all starts with a little preparation…
The importance of planning
If you’re reading this and thinking that your exams don’t start until May or even June and so you don’t need to worry yet, think again.
If the build-up to exam season tells us anything, it’s that preparation is key. The chances are your tutors and professors have already been drumming into you the importance of a revision timetable, and now’s your chance to take heed and prove them right.
Use whatever time you have left until your exams to plan a schedule for revision, downtime, exams themselves, and socialising. After all, the university is all about striking that balance between things you enjoy doing and things you need to do to succeed and move into the next year of study.
Without further ado, let’s dive right into our tips for managing, navigating, and hopefully avoiding exam stress.
1. Balance your time to succeed (without going mad!)
It can be very easy to overload your schedule with revision and exam prep (just like it can be very easy to overindulge in socialising and going out while at university).
Strike the right balance of work and play by factoring social time into your revision and exam schedule. This could be a walk with a friend, a coffee with someone from your course, or going to the gym with a housemate.
2. Stay active
There’s a lot to be said for staying active throughout your time at university. But when it comes to exam season, being active and exercising is more important than ever.
Whether this is a weekly yoga class, regular trips to the gym, a morning run, or an afternoon walk, taking time out of your day to exercise will help to centre your mind and ensure that you get out and about as often as you can.
3. Focus on your mind as well as your body
While we’re on top of exercise and staying on top of your physical health and activity, it’s also important to engage in a little mental mindfulness.
Exam time is when your brain becomes overloaded with things to remember, consider, and think about – so don’t be afraid to clear your mind sometimes with some meditation. Trust us when we say that clearing your mind for five minutes at the end of the day won’t cause all that revision to fall out of your brain!
4. Stay motivated
There’s a lot to be said for living in the moment at university. But we find it can also help to think about what you want to do both in the short term and the long term after your exams are over.
Think about your summer plans and what you’re going to do after the exam season has ended – but also think about what you want to do after university and how you hope to use your degree. Centring your mind on, or at least considering the possibilities around this, can help to motivate you and remind you of why you’re there.
5. Work and revise with others
Course friends are there to help when you don’t understand something when you forget to take a pen to a lecture and to support you when it comes to relearning and revising things from earlier in the year.
Revising alongside someone in the same boat, even if engaging in some independent study, provides moral support and another mind to bounce off of and share ideas with. What’s more, working with someone else can help to iron out concerns or questions you have – and gives you a little insight into how others are preparing for the same exams as you.
This can be particularly beneficial if you tend to feel anxious about how much others are doing, and whether or not you may be behind when it comes to exam prep.
6. Do some mock exams
You might well find that these are provided for you by a tutor or professor, but there is no harm in finding some extra mock exams to do in your own time too.
The more familiar you are with the format of your exams and how they are structured, the better prepared you will be on the day – and the less likely you are to be daunted by how the exam paper looks or reads.
Pay extra attention to the wording of questions and the number of questions in each paper, then roughly work out how long you should be spending on each before you move on to the next.
7. Make revision fun
Sometimes you need to reward yourself, particularly following a particularly tough exam or a long day of revision.
Whether it’s giving yourself an evening off or allowing yourself to get a snack after every page of revision you complete, set up a reward system that works for you and incentivises you to keep going.
Remember, it doesn’t last long!
Finally, it’s important to remember that exam season is just that – a season – and that it doesn’t last long. Soon enough, it will be summer, and you will have all the time in the world to spend with your friends doing what you want. Work hard now, and you will reap the rewards in a few weeks’ time as well as in the long term if you achieve the grades you want.
Good luck from all the team at Liv Student – we know you’ll be brilliant!
