How to Survive the Hell of Finals

Oxford University wanted me to take a year off before finals.

“If I take a year off,” I said. “I won’t come back.”

All of my friends rusticated.

Mental health problems forced them to take a year off to compose themselves.

Oxford University is extremely stressful.

Friends killed themselves.

I knew I had to find a way to deal with the hell and stress of finals without losing my sanity.

And I had to find that way FAST.

Luckily, I cracked the code.

Not only did I survive, even thrive in, finals. I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

I spent a year completely by myself, in solitude, knuckling down and working hard, committed to my vision every single day, educating myself, and I had a blast.

One of the best times of my life, right when most people were having the worst time.

Here’s how I survived the hell of Oxford University finals:

Brainwash yourself into a hypnotic rhythm – sleep, work, exercise, repeat.

Everything in my life was set up to accommodate and serve my educational aims.

I’d go to bed early every night.

I had a wind-down evening routine.

All set up to relax me and give me good restful sleep.

I had insomnia at the time, and anxiety would make falling asleep difficult sometimes, but I still managed to get 7 hours of sleep most nights.

My pre-bed routine looked like this:

Pranayama breathing meditation
Stretching/yoga
Listening to classical music like Holst’s Planets/Eckhart Tolle audiobooks before falling asleep

I’d wake up early, sometimes hit the gym, and then dive straight into work with a coffee mixed with butter before the sun was even up.

It’s so peaceful whilst everyone else is still asleep.

I remember on May Day I went to bed before 9pm.

I woke up around 4:30am and went for some fresh air outside.

The streets were packed with drunk people.

I was so confused.

Then I realised: these people hadn’t been to bed yet. I felt simultaneously like a recluse loser and like someone ahead of the game.

Everything in my life was boring, routine, planned, and predictable.

This was key to establishing flow.

Have an exercise regime that serves you and supports your mental health

I’ve got an entire course on the subject of working out for academic performance because there’s so much to cover.

But in short, follow these guidelines and you’ll be golden:

Don’t lift weights to failure (stress relief, not hypertrophy/sore muscles is the aim)
Put cardio first thing in the morning/before study – this boosts memory retention and concentration
The ideal amount of cardio pre-study is 30-50 minutes in 80% of your heart rate max zone

Have a plan

As they say, failing to plan is planning to fail.

I always sketched out my plans for the day the night before.

And every Sunday, I went to a coffee shop and planned out my entire week.

I even had a wall calendar so I could see the entire month.

I set myself KPIs (key performance indicators) and gave myself treats and rewards for hitting them.

Using a good diary, like this one, is key to surviving finals.

Supplement wisely and try bulletproof coffee

Bulletproof coffee was one of the best things I ever discovered for finals.

Here’s the recipe:

Strong coffee
Grass fed butter
MCT oil
Cinnamon
Vanilla

Don’t knock it until you try it.

It’s delicious – like the best cappuccino you’ll ever have.

I stacked my caffeine with green tea because the l-theanine balances out the jitters from the coffee.

I may or may not have used modafinil.

I wouldn’t recommend it though.

If I Gorilla Mind were available back then, I would have used that instead.

Get out of your room

You need a change of scene or you’ll get cabin fever.

I had three go-to study areas:

English Faculty Library (loved this place)
Oriel College Library, hidden in a nook somewhere
Costa Coffee on Cowley Road (the armchairs were great)

If I had a productive day, I’d “treat” myself to a couple of hours studying in the comfort of my room alternating between sitting and studying at my standing desk.

Have regular breaks

Take advantage of the primary and recency effect by working in pomodoro bursts of ~45 minutes with a 10-15 minute break.

I go into my specific way of structuring my studies in this 16-minute video:

If you find that video useful, you’ll probably get some value out of my free Oxbridge MasterClass Study Hacks Course.

Have a ritual

Ritualise as much as you possibly can.

Take the thinking out of everything.

Ritualise everything down to how/when/where you do your laundry and what clothes you lay out the night before.

Have rituals with the people in your life, your exercise, where and how you work, and how you eat.

Here were some of my rituals:

A weekly cinema trip with my brother
A couple of chill-out hours each evening
Epsom salt baths in the evening
Walking to the coffee shop with an audiobook

I also had a ritual before finals.

This was my pre-finals brainwashing technique, inspiration taken from boxers before the Big Fight:

Headphones on listening to ‘Ain’t No Stopping Us Now’ (thank you, David Haye)
Standing and moving my limbs whilst speed-reading my flashcards and notes
Strong coffee on the 20-minute walk to the exam hall with self-talk, visualisation, and affirmations
Smiling and waving to people on the walk to the hall (the Oxford carnation system lets everyone know you’re doing finals – they even know what exam you’re on)