Managing your home life while also facing the pressure of the National Senior Certificate (NSC) exams can be exhausting and could increase your anxiety levels.
This due to the life-changing impact the NSC results may have in not only determining in which university or college you may further your education, but giving guidance on which profession or career path you may follow.
To ease your stress level and ensure you write your finals level-headed, here are a few tips on how to manage your home life and matric exams.
Get organised
It’s best you first review your study timetable, see what work needs to be covered and how much time you have between each of your exams. Also look at what needs to be done at home and when those things need to be completed. Based on your two observations, draw up a plan on what can be done when for both home and studies. So on days that you have breaks, do some of the things that need to be done at home. You could use maybe the morning to do home chores and afternoons to study.
Time management
It’s super important to manage your time well during exam season. You really don’t want to waste your precious time, so get things written in your calendar or weekly schedule and then stick to the map you lay out for yourself.
Manage your anxiety and stress
So much is happening with so little time. However, stressing yourself and being anxious will not solve or lessen the situation. You need to ensure that your head is in the rights space. You have already organised your schedule to take care of both home and exams, now follow that schedule strictly so you don’t have to worry about either one taking more time than the other. If you need a break, its good to just take a few minutes to refresh your mind and ease your stresses. Remember that anxiety may make you go blank when writing exams, so its best you relax and breathe.
Maintain a healthy diet
You have to eat, but be cautious that you don’t stress-eat. You need to ensure that you eat nutritious foods that can revitalize your energy and give you endurance for those long hours of studying. Eating junk food will only tire you and too much caffeine or energy drink will give a quick high due to the sugar rush, but also make your energy go down just as fast. Snack on fruits, stay away from those chocolates.
Good eating goes hand in hand with regular breaks which you can use to take walks, stretch or even meditate to refresh your mind.
Sleep
One can’t stress enough the importance of having enough sleep before exams. You need to give the mind a rest so that when you enter that exam room you are awake enough to complete the exam and answer the questions sufficiently. Also, don’t try studying during the day and doing house chores at night. Night time is for sleeping. Fit in any of your home chores during your breaks or on your off days.