Juniors Annabelle Messer and Megan LeBlanc, along with sophomore Mackenzie Beckworth continue the blog series, “Girl Talk”, covering issues spotlighting the triumphs and struggles from the female perspective. Check out their first blog article in the series read BLOG: Girl Talk–Sadies or the most recent, BLOG: Girl Talk-Preparations for formal.

Our head begins to pound with pain and tears flow from our eyes as the uncompleted load of homework crowds our thoughts. As students head into their last couple weeks of school, teachers apply pressure on them to finish projects and study for end-of-the- semester finals.

Due to multiple classes and college planning, stress is common for high school students. To gain better knowledge of the students’ stress levels, Frontiers in Psychology designed a study that focused two East Coast high schools. According to the study, females receive a larger stress amount and homework load than males.

While 60% of females go through a great deal of stress, only 41% of males believe their stress is excessive. Along with stress levels, females receive more of a work load than males. 70% of females complete three or more hours of homework a night while only 30% of males do.

Emily Penberthy, ’22, explains why school stresses her out and how she plans on preparing for her finals.

“I usually get stressed during this time of year,” Penberthy said. “I get stressed when it comes to finals and my grades because I want to finish out my year with the best grades I can. The teachers help by going over the materials we need for the finals and I will be studying which really helps for the tests.”

Even after hours of studying, we sometimes fail to remember the information we retain, causing us to stress even more. Whether we get distracted or try to finish our work too fast, the information goes in one ear and out the other. Here are some helpful tips for studying and to remembering information during finals.

• Don’t multitask: Your mind needs to focus on one subject at a time for it to memorize the information better.

• For every 30 minutes of studying, take a 5-minute break: After 30 minutes of studying, your mind begins to shut down. Take a 5-minute break and give your brain a rest!

• Read out loud instead of to yourself: By reading out loud to yourself, it forces you to read every word instead of just skimming through the text.

• Create flash cards: Flashcards are an easy way to learn information quickly by writing it down and quizzing yourself.

• Turn your phone off: Your phone can become a distraction for you. To focus more on your studying, turn it off to prevent it from ringing or buzzing.

• Don’t stay up late the day before a test: The later you stay up studying, the more your brain begins to shut down and not remember the information. As well as not retaining the information, you wake up tired and not at your best.

Using these tips can help focus your mind on studying and provide an efficient way to learn your material without your mind wandering off. If these tips do not help you study, you may want to think of your own ways that benefit you by providing a distraction free zone.

In the following podcast, Brittany McCann, ’20, tells us how she has prepared for finals and gives advice to students who are studying for their finals.

Sophomore Hannah Villines talks about her work load at school and how she plans on studying for finals week.

“What stresses me out about school is all of the upcoming assignment due dates, finals and the fact that after that last deadline in each class, there is no fixing whatever grade I have,” Villines said. “I have just been trying to stay on top of everything coming up. Some advice I would give to people is to not procrastinate every upcoming due date and to just get it done. Give it to God because the school year is almost over.”

Even if you retain information well and can study without any distractions, the overload of homework can still cause you to stress. When you stress, your body releases an excessive amount of adrenaline that causes your heart rate and blood pressure to increase.

Stress is not healthy for your body. Trying to fix stress in the wrong way can affect your body and behavior. Teens try working non-stop and over-eating to lower their stress, but it can result in obesity, anxiety and depression. Here are some helpful tips to reduce your stress and calm your heart rate down.

• Spend time with God: By reading your Bible or praying, spending time with God enables your mind to calm down and allows you to receive God’s peace.

• Take a walk: It seems hard to leave the house when you have a ton of work that needs to be completed, but taking a walk will help you cool down.

• Write down everything you have to complete: Instead of frantically trying to remember all of your work, write it down. This will help you not to worry about forgetting an assignment and organize your work.

• Meditate: Meditating helps slow down your heart rate and can help get your mind off of your school work.

• Take a 10-minute nap: A short 10-minute nap helps you regain energy to complete your homework and calms you down.

• Breathing technique: Try the 4-7-8 technique. Breathe in your nose for 4 seconds, hold it for 7 seconds and exhale through your mouth for 8 seconds. Repeating this technique helps your heart rate to slow down and reach a more normal pace.

Though finals week feels like it lasts a lifetime, just remember to push yourself to do the best that you can. Give everything your 100% and focus on achieving the best grades you can receive. Good luck to everyone taking finals!

For more articles read World-class photojournalist travels, shares stories from around the globe and Editorial: Year-end choices still affect college future

Megan LeBlanc can be reached via email and Twitter.