Finals week is a stressful time for any college student; it seems that all the procrastination and work that you were supposed to do piles up on the couple of weeks that you have to complete and study for your exams. On top of exams, there are projects that need completing with group members that never seem to pull their weight and a load of other responsibilities that need fulfilling just when the weather either starts to get terrible in the Fall where all you want to do is watch Netflix in your comfortable bed, or in the Spring when the weather finally climbs out in the 40’s and you can go outside without four layers of clothing on.
Us Penn Stater’s have our work cut out for us and many of us don’t have the luxury for sleep or find it hard to find a good seven hours or so to really be ready and prepared to tackle the day and all of its battles especially when you might need to hit the gym after the Thanksgiving turkey helped put a few extra pounds on you. Fortunately enough there are tips and tricks in order to help you get a good night’s rest so you can obtain all the information you need to ace your exams.
First thing is first, do not oversleep on the weekend to make up for time you missed out on during your busy week. Not only does oversleeping on weekends not help gain cognitive memory or REM sleep you missed out on in your sleep deprived school week, but according to a new study, sleeping late on weekends can be bad for health as it disrupts the regular sleeping patterns of a person. Although it is unclear if there are long term effects from oversleeping the metabolic changes brought on by oversleeping can contribute to the development of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease in case ruining your sleep schedule wasn’t enough.
Secondly, get seven hours of sleep and you will outperform those in your class that do not by almost a full letter grade. Students with confidence of scoring well will do better than those of us who procrastinate and cram. If it isn’t in your head by bed time then just give up and hope to get a good night’s rest so you can do your best or study with a complete mind in the morning. Cram for your final two days ahead of time. (If you must). Then relax and sleep the day before. You will score higher. The brain needs time to digest and integrate.
And finally, drink water. Bring a bottle of water with you to your next exam and you may boost your test score, according to a new study from the University of East London. The study with almost 500 undergraduates tested this and gained evidence on water helping you on your exams, prior grades were used so it’s not just a matter of smarter students being more likely to bring a bottle of water but an experiment that showed water does indeed help.
If you follow these tips I can’t guarantee you get a 4.00 this semester but there is significant scientific evidence that supports that these sleeping habits and drinking water should help improve your scores so that we all finish the semester with better grades and healthier minds and bodies.
Every students want to get high grade in their class. That’s why the final exam is the most important part to students. Some students around me take ADD medicine to focus their study. However, I know that is the worst way to study. I agree with you that sleeping is important to maintain my condition and focus to study. Great post and good luck with finals.
Sleep is essential to have a strong focus in anything but especially studying. Surviving off caffeine for a week to cram is not the best method to study. Students are damaging their health by doing so and should think twice before pulling an all-nighter.
I find it interesting that sleep is so directly related to success in school. I try to get at least 8 hours a night but it doesn’t always work. When I can’t get my full 8 hours, I try to get naps in throughout the day. A quick 20 minute nap can help rejuvenate you and increase alertness. Look at this site for more information on napping tips. Good luck with finals!
https://sleepfoundation.org/sleep-topics/napping
Additionally, 15% of college students are not satisfied with their sleep (University of Minnesota)! I remember living in dorms, where I could not find quiet space at night in order to study. Our neighbors would wake us up and I NEVER enjoyed more than eight hours of sleep. I was young, and did’t understand how negatively that would effect my grades. However, in hindsight, sleep deprivation is the catalyst for academic failure.
Since most of the students at Penn State drink on the weekends, I looked at a study by the University of Minnesota which examined alcohol intake, and sleep patterns. Binge-drinking on Friday and sleeping in Saturday is incredibly unhealthy. Not only is your sleep inefficient, however, you cannot fully cognitively function the next day after a certain amount of drinks. Lastly, we cannot compensate for sleep. It is not possible. If you miss sleep during the week, do not try to compensate on the weekend; all you will do is further throw off your sleeping cycle and feel less energized. Good luck to everyone on finals!
https://sites.oxy.edu/clint/physio/article/TheLinkBetweenSleepQuantityandAcademic.pdf
I recently wrote a similar article which focused more on how to study to achieve maximum benefits. This included using various sense while studying. I didn’t consider the other methods to be taken to get the best out of your tests. I wonder how effective all the methods really are and maybe it just comes down to knowing the information or not knowing it.
These are some almost tips that I will definitely take in to consider while taking my finals and studying for my finals in the next two weeks. Sometimes I do wary if certain strategies like sleeping more instead of cramming depend upon the person. When I cram for a test and loose hours of sleep because of it sometimes I don’t regret loosing those hours of sleep because I feel like more prepared for the test then say I studied less but slept more.
Thank you so much for these great tips on how to ace all of my finals, if only i had read this before the end of this blogging period. I would like to see where you got the bulk of this from, because i could totally see how these would be helpful but not really the evidence that i want to see, maybe something about sleep deprivation, or why water is important to have and why it helps.
http://www.webmd.com/diet/6-reasons-to-drink-water
Here are 6 health benefits to drinking water, i could also see how these could help with taking tests.