5 Techniques to Kill Finals Stress

Do you feel your leg shaking uncontrollably? Has your craving for ice cream increased substantially within the past few days? Have you spent more time in the library this past week than you have spent there the entire semester? Would you rather do anything but be on campus right now? Yup, sounds like finals time! Let me remind you that it could be worse. It could be raining for 2 weeks straight like it did during finals in 2015 or we could have a ginormous snow storm where snow is up to our thighs like we had in 2014. Despite the awfulness you are feeling, I promise you it could be worse.

Contrary to what most people are feeling right now, I am not feeling stressed. Why is that? Because I have learned to cope with school and I do not suffer from the anxiety of getting a B in school. Don't get me wrong, I used to, back in my Comp Sci days, but I have since learned to avoid stress and I will teach you how to do the same. So without further ado:

How to avoid stress in 5 easy-peasy steps…

ABC, 123 Technique

This, like most of the techniques I use today, I learned in HLTH285 here at the University of Maryland. It consists of taking 5 minutes every morning to outline your day. You label things first by importance with A being things that HAVE TO GET DONE TODAY like a scholarship with today as a deadline. You then order todays priorities in the order which it is essential for you to complete them. A-1, A-2, A-3. If you have trouble deciding what should go first, lets just go ahead and make the hardest or least desirable thing you’re A-1. Your B will be things that you want to accomplish today but it wont be the end of the world to push them off until tomorrow like your homework that is due in two days. You order those numerically based off of importance same as you did with your As. Last but not least you have your Cs. These are tasks that you need to remember but have no importance to getting done by a certain time like cleaning your car. I find that I tend to order them numerically by how fast the deadline is coming around or how soon I plan to do it.

Most people do not have a procrastination problem, they have a priorities problem so giving your self an outline of your priorities can be just what you need to get things done. Plus it just feels really good to check things off the list.

Pomodoro Technique

There are things you can do without much thinking like cleaning, throwing a football around and decorating your home for the holidays. I promise you studying for finals does not fall into this category. Your brain is working overtime either trying to recall what you learned all semester or trying to learn what you never did. The best thing you can do to keep your brain running lickety split is offer it some rest every now and again.

This eliminates 2 problems for most of you. The first being you like to claim you are studying so hard when the only thing you've been studying is the recent Re-Tweets on twitter. Yeah, busted! For those of you who do not use Twitter, I guarantee that you find yourself distracted on other applications on your phone whether it be Instagram, Facebook, texting, Snapchat, etc. And if not, you probably fall into the the second category. The second category is full of people who push and push themselves to get things done, despite visible frustration. This person never gives themselves any slack. Well your brain needs slack regardless of which category you are in.

The Pomodoro technique is easy. You set a time on your phone for 25 minutes and then put your phone far enough away from you that you would have to get up to retrieve it. For those excruciatingly long, or short, 25 minutes you focus on studying, and ONLY on studying. At the end of those 25 minutes you get up to retrieve the alarm that is now going off on your phone. You set an alarm for 5 minutes and in those 5 minutes you check your notifications and stretch your legs. You do NOT resume studying until the end of those 5 minutes. You then set your clock for 25 minutes and resume studying. While it seems foolish, there is science behind it saying the Pomodoro technique works. So who are we to laugh at science?

Stay Active

As cliche as it may sound, its the truth. Staying active has scientifically been proven to help you study. Moving increases the blood flow to your brain and being outdoors helps you take in sunlight which is a natural stimuli. Its no wonder you can think better after a short walk. Don't be afraid to take a breather and get some crisp, chill air while you study. A 5-minute walk can be the difference between a 5-minute practice problem and a should-have-been-5-but-now-its-30-minute practice problem.

Eat Healthy-sih

Eat healthy but reward yourself. There's nothing wrong with giving yourself a small piece of chocolate after a long day of studying. Chocolate causes your body to release dopamine making you a happier you and what else could you possibly need with finals lurking? But I did say a piece. So don't get carried away. Too much junk food will leave you feeling sluggish and crappy. Fuel your body with the right nutrients and it will fuel you with the right answers during that Orgo Exam!

Remember What it Means to be a Terp

We all know the running jokes. Howard is a party school, Towson is a joke and UMBC...we won't even speak of UMBC. Remember that you are going to a school ranked as a public ivy league. Which is just their fancy way of making our lives harder than they have to be. But you know how hard we work and so do jobs. Having UMD on your resume is as good as having Harvard for many local businesses including Booz Allen, NSA, NASA and more. Maryland is your golden ticket and you, my dear, are Willy Wonka.

So instead of stressing over finals try one of these five techniques and remember you make your grades but your grades do not make you.

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