5 Essential Cramming Secrets To Make Your Last-Minute Study Far More Effective

You have left –or you are going to leave – studying for your exams until the very last minute.

You're a student, procrastination is as intrinsic to your nature as drinking cans and eating three-day-old Dominoes leftovers. And that's fine.

But since you're going to end up cramming you may as well make sure that you do it right. So here are five tips that will help you through the exams you are so woefully underprepared for.

1. Work in 30-minute bursts

As the date of the exam draws closer you can get the urge to spend from sun-up 'til sun-down in the library with your head wedged deep inside a book.

However, your feeble mind can only handle so much. So to help it out, try The Pomodoro Technique.

This technique uses short breaks to ensure that your concentration stays in tip-top form. When you sit down to study set a timer for around 25 minutes. Study without distraction until the timer elapses, and once it goes off take a short, five-minute break.

Repeat until you've done this four times, then after the forth session take a longer break and then start over.

2. Get Some Sleep

It's tempting to pull an all-nighter before a big exam, but that can actually do you more harm than good.

Sleeping triggers processes in the brain that help consolidate memories, and studies have shown that people have better recall when they've had a good night's rest.

So instead of studying until the wee hours of the morning, try to get a good night's rest and get up early to carry on.

3. Be Wary Of Caffine Crashes

Coffee is often thought of as magic study potion. But it's really, really not.

True, a little coffee can help boost short term memory but abusing coffee can lead to massive caffeine crash and utter exhaustion.

Coffee works by stimulating your adrenal gland, drinking too much is the equivalent of telling your body it's in danger, causing it to kick into high gear and crash as soon as that sweet, sweet adrenaline runs out. So limit yourself to one or two cups of coffee when you study and you'll find that you'll be able to focus for longer.

4. Power Nap

Coffee doesn't clear your bloodstream of melatonin, the 'sleepy' chemical your body produces when you're tired. The only thing that does that is sleep.

Drinking a coffee and then immediately going for a 15-minute power nap can do wonders for your concentration.  The nap clears the melatonin from your bloodstream and the coffee, which typically takes 15-minutes to kick in, will give you a kickstart when you wake up.

5. And finally, don't re-read – re-write

Instead of re-reading your notes for hours at a time, try briefly reading them over and then re-writing what you can from memory.

Re-reading alone doesn't help you learn effectively as it's a passive activity, but re-writing helps you actively consolidate and build upon what you already know.