6 Motivation Tips To Get You Through Exam Season

As the academic year looms, the pressures of exam season can become a real strain on your physical and mental state and staying motivated with your studies can be a real challenge.

Don’t look back and regret how badly you managed your exam preparation, check out these six top tips on how you can stay motivated throughout the upcoming exam season.

Prepare your study area

In order to avoid distraction, you’ll need a study area that’s comfortable and spacious. Make sure you have everything you need for the day such as pens, pencils, notebooks and research material.

Some students feel settled when their study space is neat and organised, while others thrive in cluttered surroundings. Quiet background music can often help with concentration, but others may need complete silence to study effectively. It’s all about what works for you and it may take some time to get your study strategy just right.

Study in small chunks

Make sure you take enough breaks during your study period to give you longer-lasting concentration. Don’t push yourself too hard as you’ll find yourself becoming less motivated and even more stressed.

According to research, the less breaks you take, the less you will learn over a period of time. Researchers advise that you should take a 10-15 minute break every 60 minutes or so to improve your memory capacity and understand the information you’re observing.

Stay away from technology

Young people everywhere are addicted to their phones with the hope of finding out the latest gossip on Facebook and keeping up-to-date with their favourite Instagrammers. According to a 2010 survey, the use of Facebook can actually lower exam results by a whopping 20% – so it may make you think again when scrolling through social media sites.

The average Brit spends 1 hour 40 minutes each day on social media according to research from 2015. Just think of all of those valuable study minutes wasted…

Sometimes keeping yourself in check and leaving your phone in another room for a couple of hours is what’s needed. It’s easy to grab your phone and spend too much time procrastinating, so don’t allow yourself to get distracted by placing it in eye’s view.

Eat regularly and healthily

It’s important to keep on top of your meals throughout the day even though you may feel like it’s taking valuable time away from your studies. As you may already know, breakfast is the most important meal of the day to keep your energy levels up, so don’t skip it.

Avoid sugary snacks which will give you a short burst of energy and instead opt for oat bars, fruits and cereals which will prolong your energy and keep blood sugar levels stable.

Making sure you’re well fed means you’ll be more inclined to stay focused without feeling hungry and exhausted.

Organise study sessions

Sometimes you may need that extra motivational push to cram in revision, so organising a study session with your friends could be really beneficial. You’ll have the opportunity to ask each other questions  and challenge each other with exam questions. As long as you’re all determined to stay on task, study group sessions could be a really effective strategy to help with concentration.

Make a study timetable

Trying to study without goals or ambitions makes it near enough impossible to keep on track with your studies. Setting yourself small goals should keep you striving to achieve.

One idea would be to create a study timetable as a way of hitting deadlines by specific times or dates. These goals don’t have to be extreme, but just manageable enough to keep you on task. Once you’re done, tick your goals off the list!

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