look after yourself

"working hard is important but feeling good is important too"
steven universe

For a lot of us who are still in education, whether it's full-time or part-time, you have probably started your Easter holidays and that only means one thing. Exam season is around the corner. Now, there are probably many different ways that we're all going to be using the next few weeks. It can either be trying to cram 6 months worth of content into two weeks and hope for the best or be chilling and taking it slow or even just having midlife crisis' every now and then which is the path, for some reason my wonderful brain (hope you sense the sarcasm), usually decides to take during this glorious time of the academic year. And I'm not going to generalise and write on behalf of everyone else but I know that for me, this time of the year is usually just a bit worse than the rest of the year. I mean I'm already a mess from September until now but once Easter holidays show up, it's as if there's WW3 happening in Sweena's brain. Which is why I had decided to write this post, because I know that there are many people out there who may feel the same way. A tad (using the word 'tad' very loosely in this context) overwhelmed, confused and extremely lost.

how most of us feel when exam season comes around

When it comes to exam season, it is very easy to stop looking after ourselves because for some reason, we make ourselves believe that our physical and mental health are no longer the priority. Well guess what? It is. How are you supposed to focus and work well and keep concentrating on what you're trying to revise if you're mentally in a bad place and if you're ill. You won't be able to and at the end of the day, you will only get frustrated with yourself because you can't concentrate or you're not understanding what you're trying to revise. We can all agree that education is important, but what we tend to forget is that education is always going to be there. You can always come back to it at any point in your life, it's not going to go anywhere. However, if you let yourself get in a place where it's hard to get yourself back on track, it may take a bit longer to get back to the stage that you were at before, if that makes sense. So here are a few tips that I'm going to give you

Sweena's tips and tricks to get through Easter and Exam season in one piece

i got you bro ;)

1. Make yourself a plan

I always feel planning my week ahead helps me feel less overwhelmed. This is because when it comes to the day of revision, I don't stress myself out by trying to figure out what I'm going to revise on the day. I also feel as if trying to figure out what to revise on the day wastes time, so if you plan ahead then you can just get straight to revising. By being able to plan ahead you're also giving an estimation as to when you'll get your revision done by and you'll be able to get an idea as to whether you would be able to have time to go over topics that you're not as confident in and need more practice on. Planning ahead is honestly a blessing, and ticking off a task from your list is also so satisfying and always gives me more motivation to get through the rest of the tasks.

2. Give yourself a catch up day

I personally get really frustrated when I lose motivation, which means that I don't end up doing as much revision as I would have liked to. I get frustrated especially because then I start stressing about how I'm going to be behind on my revision. Which is why I always give myself a catch day and it works wonders. I usually have a catch up day at the end of the week, so usually Fridays and a catch up day basically means doing everything that you weren't able to do on the previous days. So for example, say on Tuesday I had planned to do some of my programming practice and I wasn't able to, I would do this on Friday instead. This is so that I don't have to worry about being behind on revision because I would have completed all the revision that I had planned for the week anyways.

3. BREAKS. BREAKS. BREAKS.

I am telling you, there is no way that you're going to have a productive revision session if you work for 3 hours or more without giving yourself. You might think that it might have been productive but there's a 80% that it wasn't. You need to give yourself breaks. Breaks are essential for revision. Usually you won't be able to concentrate on what you\re working for more than 45 mins or even an hour. There may be a chance, if you're really enjoying yourself whilst you revise that you would be able to concentrate for 1h30 or even 2 hours but the chances are very low. You genuinely won't be able to remember what you've revised if you don't give yourself and what would have been the point of revising for a long period of time if you can't remember any of it? What I personally do, if I know that it's going to be a long day of revision is that I do 25 mins slots with a 5 min break in between. But in that 5 mins break I won't go on my phone or anything, instead I would have a snack or go to the bathroom or something. Once I have done 4 slots of 25 mins, then I would give myself a 30 mins break. During this break is when I would check phone (not that I would need to, nobody messages me lololol) or even use that time to watch an episode of a show which is 20 mins or shorter, watching an episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S is the perfect lenght for  your break.

4. Don't be too hard on yourself

This is easier said than done. People who know me are going to be like this girl can't even do this herself how is she advising others to do it? Hypocrite. LISTEN, I enjoy giving advice even if I don't follow it myself. Besides the point but during exam season, without realising it we put a lot of pressure on ourselves. I know that I do, and you might become very harsh on yourself. But I think we all need to understand that (even I need to understand and come to terms with) we're not superheroes, we're not robots. We're going to crash at one point, we're going to breakdowns and we're going to feel lost and it's okay to feel that way. We are humans. We're not going to constantly be able to be on that revision grind. Revision is exhausting. Not understanding a certain topic and trying to understand it is hard work. It's never easy but we should let ourselves, brains and body to react in a normal way and give ourselves a break. I know that I forget that I'm human sometimes and I get so angry when my brain decides to act up but at the end of the day, it's so normal and I feel like we need to remember this every now and then. REMEMBER REMEMBER REMEMBEEEEEER!!!!!

an accurate representation of what happens inside sweena's brain
during exam season. how beautiful

5. Treat yourself

Treat yourself every now and then. You don't have to be on that grind 24/7. Use the weekends as the weekends and as a time where you can give yourself time to recover, relax and have fun. If you can get everything you wanted to get done during the week, give yourself a pat on the back and take the weekend to have fun. Watch the shows that you've been putting off and watch as many as you want because you deserve it. Make plans with your friends, buy yourself some McDoanalds, play some Fortnite or some FIFA. Treat yourself with some new kicks or clothes. JUST TREAT YOURSELF, GO HAM. It's your time. Cry if you need to cry. Go and visit the city, go to museums. Just enjoy yourself and make sure that you don't feel guilty for treating yourself because you worked hard and you deserve it.

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I'm not going to say these tips are going to guarantee you a perfect mindset or perfect revision or whatever and I'm not saying that it's perfect for me either because we all know that it won't be. But I just want to reinforce the main message, look after yourself but also look after one another, your friends and family. If you notice a friend has distanced themselves, don't pry but make sure that they're doing okay and just drop them a message every now and then. Even if they don't reply, don't take it personally, just give them time but I know that it would make them feel better knowing that there's someone that cares.

To wrap up this post, I hope that you all have a lovely Easter holiday, make sure to relax because working is important but feeling good is important too and the best of luck to everyone who's going to have exams after the Easter holidays.

You've got this ! Good luck.

Love, Sweena.


P.S: i'm not a pro adviser so you don't have to follow my tips or whatever. but i hope that you all enjoyed my blogs and that and i'm not sure when my next post will go up, but i want my 10th post to be a funny one so let's hope that i am going to have a brilliant and funny topic to write about.