As cramming for finals week begins, work piles up and procrastination becomes less and less pragmatic, hygiene and sleep will inevitably take a backseat.
"It's kind of ironic that at a time when you need to be your healthiest, the first thing students give up are their healthy behaviors," Tufts Director of Alcohol and Health Education Ian Wong said. But Wong has several tips to help students survive finals period.
Do: Sleep
If sleeping for a full eight hours every night isn't possible, Wong proposes taking naps whenever possible.
A study published in the British Medical Journal in 2000 suggested that sleep deprivation lasting 17 to 19 hours is comparable to having a blood alcohol level of more than .05. The legal driving limit in Massachusetts is .08.
Proper nutrition is also essential for maintaining health, Wong said.
Kate Sweeney, a graduate student at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, doubted the efficacy of studying late at night. "Looking back, I don't think staying up actually helped me do well on my tests and papers," she said.
Don't: Ignore your body's warning signs
"If your body says that you're hungry, you know what you are? You're hungry," Wong said.
Students should pay more attention to their bodies' basic needs, he said. Often your body will let you know when you've had enough, and not listening to those signs can affect you negatively in many ways.
Do: Plan your day
Wong emphasized the importance of mapping out your available time for studying — and eating.
"The day can very much get away from you if you don't have things planned out. All of a sudden it's 7 o'clock, you haven't eaten all day, you've been in the library and you end up eating a bag of chips and having a soda or coffee to keep yourself going," he said. "And I'll hear students even tell me that they'll be in the library, but they don't want to give up their spot, so they won't go eat."
As a result, Health Services will be distributing healthy snack alternatives at Tisch Library and the Campus Center on Wednesday, Dec. 12, starting around 10:30 a.m.
Don't: Drink alcohol
The effects of alcohol consumption last longer than many realize and can put a wrench in your study schedule, Wong said.
"Even though students think, ‘I'll drink alcohol Friday night, maybe Saturday I don't feel well, but Sunday everything will be fine,' it takes somewhere between two or three days for your body to start getting back to where it was," he said.
Do: Limit caffeine intake
Like alcohol, caffeine can dehydrate the body, leading to fatigue and other negative side effects. Wong suggested staying hydrated by upping your usual water intake.
Do: Exercise
Even 15 minutes of exercise a day can have a positive impact on grades and study habits, Wong said. A report presented by Saginaw Valley State University researchers this summer found that those who exercise vigorously for at least 20 minutes each day have a higher grade point average than those who don't, according to Sweeney.
Don't: Lose your cool
Wong stressed the importance of maintaining perspective during finals season.
"I hear students saying things like, ‘If I don't know this material, I'll never get into grad school, and if I don't get into grad school, I don't know what I'm going to do,' and pretty soon what was a calculus exam has now become their whole career," he said.
Stressing, Sweeney said, is simply not effective.
"I think a lot of times students will worry too much thinking about all the things they don't know, and, you know, taking an exam, the thing that counts is expressing to the professor what you do know and making sure you complete those parts well," he said.
Do: Take advantage of resources
Wong encourages students to take advantage of the academic resources provided by Tufts, like professors' office hours and tutors.
Don't: Use Adderall
Adderall, the attention deficit disorder drug often illegally misused as a study aid by those for whom it is not prescribed, gets a thumbs-down from Wong.
"Don't do it," Wong said. "A lot of the time, people use stimulants like that to write papers, like Jack Kerouac. When he wrote ‘On the Road,' he was using crystal meth and the original transcript, from what I understand, was one big, long sentence that just kind of rambled on and on and on."
Wong said that no evidence suggests that Adderall boosts grades, adding that the drug does not always act as a stimulant and inevitably causes a mental crash.
"If you could stay up for 24 hours and learn all this material, then the semester would be one day long," Wong said. "But it's not. … It's the same with coffee and other stimulants. All that it's doing is keeping you awake."
