It is that dreaded time of the year again, finals week. High school students fear the oncoming stress, teachers prepare for all of that grading, but there lies an undiscovered truth about studying for these tests that will benefit each and every student. Finals are not quite as hard as some may think. All those hours spent cramming in studying can be shortened and made more beneficial.

1. Manage Your Time

Even though it is tempting to procrastinate until you have no time left to spare, one must fight that urge, and study in the most effective way.  Reviewing through notes and information in chunks of 20 minutes, then taking a 5-10 minute break has been proven to be the most effective way to study. Managing your time is a key element in studying effectively, and although it may be hard, it can be done with commitment.

2. Studying With Music

Most people either study in silence, or study with up beat and intense songs, which can’t be very helpful for the drastically increasing stress levels.

“Certain types of music, like Mozart’s compositions — which follow a 60 bpm pattern — have been shown to activate both the right and left sides of the brain in listeners,” Says Business Insider. With both the right and left sides of the brain linked, your brain will be more stimulated, and it will retain much more important information. But lets be honest, practically no teenager wants to listen to Mozart while studying, or ever in their free time. We all get desperate at times, and although classical music is not our favorite music, listening to Mozart may be the answer to acing your finals.

3. Eating Well

Certain foods have many beneficial ingredients that will help keep your focus on the study guide, and one very helpful food is cacao.

“Packed with antioxidants as well as cognitive and mood enhancers, the unadulterated cacao bean has been recently lauded as a super food. To take full advantage of the nutritious bean, dissolve a spoonful of organic cocoa into a hot milk and add cinnamon, espresso and cayenne pepper for optimal energy,” says Dan Wilson from Huffington Post. Do not simply eat a chocolate bar; Once cacao is processed into chocolate, it’s healthy benefits are overpowered by sugar, which will give you sky-high energy, but then a long, hard crash… resulting in meltdowns, and we have all been there.

4. Separate Studying

If you look at each test in its own way, and study for each test differently, you are more likely to have the ability to keep the information for each class separate.

“If you try to study for your calculus exam the way you would study for a literature exam, you probably won’t do very well,” says Scott Young from getmorefromlife.com Each class covers different material, so to study for each class, different methods must be used. Some very helpful ways to study include the obvious: note cards, review questions, and study guides. You can also try out repeating information back to yourself, re-writing the phrases or words, and if you are feeling particularly inventive, make up your own study/repetition method.

The impossible task of studying for finals becomes a much less tedious job when you make it fun and intriguing. Studying is about much more than just repeating information; it is about wanting to learn and wanting to take action in your own grades. With these effective ways to study, finals this years finals wi