Exam Season: How to Study, Focus and Sleep Better

Short answer: the study habits with the strongest evidence are testing yourself (retrieval practice) and spreading revision over several days (spaced practice), rather than rereading notes or cramming. Protect your sleep in the weeks before exams, keep your phone out of the room while you study, take short active breaks, and go easy on caffeine and energy drinks, especially if you are under 18.

From October to December, South Africa's matrics write their final NSC and IEB exams and university students sit their end-of-year papers. It is a high-pressure time for students and parents. This guide brings together what research actually shows about studying, focus and sleep, and ends with a sample exam-week routine you can copy.

Study smarter: the two techniques with the best evidence

1. Retrieval practice (test yourself)

Retrieval practice means pulling information out of your memory instead of putting it in again. A large 2017 meta-analysis in Review of Educational Research (Adesope and colleagues) concluded that practice tests are more beneficial for learning than rereading and every other comparison study method they looked at.

How to do it:

• Work through past papers under timed conditions (the Department of Basic Education publishes NSC past papers and memos).
• Close the textbook and write down everything you remember about a topic, then check what you missed.
• Use flashcards: question on one side, answer on the other. Say the answer before you flip.
• Explain a concept out loud to a friend, parent or even an empty chair.

2. Spaced practice (spread it out)

Studying a topic in several shorter sessions over days beats one long session. A 2025 meta-analysis on mathematics learning (Murray, Horner and Göbel, Educational Psychology Review, 27 studies) found a small-to-medium benefit of spaced over "massed" (crammed) practice. Interestingly, the same review found the benefit of testing in maths specifically was less clear, possibly because there are fewer studies, so for maths, mix past-paper practice with worked examples.

A simple spacing plan: review a topic the day you learn it, again two or three days later, then a week later.

What does not work as well

• Rereading and highlighting: feels productive, but you mostly recognise the material rather than recall it.
• Cramming the night before: may get you through tomorrow's paper but is forgotten quickly, and costs you sleep.

Sleep: your secret study tool

Sleep is when the brain consolidates what you learned during the day. Skimping on it undoes revision.

• The American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends 8 to 10 hours a night for teenagers aged 13 to 18, and links less sleep to attention, behaviour and learning problems.
• A study at MIT (Okano and colleagues, npj Science of Learning, 2019) tracked 88 university students' sleep with wearable devices across a semester. Sleep quality, duration and consistency together explained about 25% of the variation in their grades. Sleep the night before a test did not seem to matter much; what counted was steady sleep during the weeks when they were learning.

The lesson: an all-nighter is a bad trade. Keep regular bed and wake times throughout exam season, not just the night before.

Phones and focus

A 2024 meta-analysis in Computers in Human Behavior combined 27 randomised experiments (2,245 young adults) and found that texting, chatting and social media during learning had a medium-sized negative effect on how much students remembered, and a large effect on recall of lectures.

• Put the phone in another room while studying, not face-down on the desk.
• Use focus mode or app timers, and check messages only in your breaks.
• Study in blocks: 25 to 50 minutes of focused work, then a 5 to 10 minute break.
• Keep screens out of the bedroom for the last hour before sleep.

Move your body: exercise breaks

A 2024 meta-analysis in Communications Psychology (113 studies, 4,390 participants) found that a single bout of physical activity gave healthy young adults a small improvement in cognitive performance, mostly faster reaction times. The effect is modest, but a 10 to 20 minute walk, skipping or a quick home workout between study blocks also lifts mood and breaks up long sitting sessions.

Caffeine and energy drinks: what is safe?

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) advises:

Who	Suggested safe limit	Example
Healthy adults	Up to 400 mg a day; up to 200 mg at once	A filter coffee has about 90 mg
Children and teens	About 3 mg per kg of body weight a day	A 50 kg teen: about 150 mg a day in total
Pregnant or breastfeeding	Up to 200 mg a day	Roughly two cups of filter coffee

Energy drinks are a particular concern for younger students. A 2024 systematic review in Public Health (57 studies, over 1.2 million children and young people) linked energy drink consumption with sleep problems, stress, anxiety and lower academic performance. Our advice:

• Teens: avoid energy drinks, especially in the evening or several in a day.
• Everyone: no caffeine after early afternoon, because it can disturb sleep, which you need to lock in what you studied.
• Check labels: caffeine content per can varies, and some drinks also contain guarana (another caffeine source).
• Water, regular meals and fruit are better "energy" than a can.

Signs of exam stress to watch for

Some nerves are normal and can sharpen focus. The South African Depression and Anxiety Group (SADAG) highlights fear of failure, sleep loss, isolation and feeling overwhelmed as common struggles for matrics. Parents and students should watch for:

• trouble sleeping, or sleeping all the time;
• not eating, or constant snacking;
• headaches, stomach aches or panic before papers;
• withdrawing from friends and family;
• talk of being a failure or a burden.

Parents can help by praising effort over marks, keeping the house calm and making sure meals and sleep happen. Remember, as SADAG puts it, exam results do not define who you are.

A sample exam-week routine

1. 07:00: wake at the same time every day; open the curtains and get daylight.
2. 07:30: breakfast with protein (eggs, yoghurt, peanut butter on toast, oats).
3. 08:30 to 12:00: three focused study blocks of about 50 minutes, phone in another room. Start each block with a quick self-test on yesterday's work.
4. 12:00: lunch and a 20-minute walk outside.
5. 13:00 to 16:00: past paper under timed conditions, then mark it with the memo and list your mistakes.
6. 16:00: exercise, sport or time with friends.
7. 18:00: supper; light review of flashcards and your mistake list.
8. 20:30: stop studying. Screens off, shower, read something easy.
9. 21:30 to 22:00: lights out for 8 to 10 hours' sleep (teens) or at least 7 (adults).

On exam days, pack your bag the night before, eat breakfast, arrive early and skip last-minute group panic in the corridor.

What about supplements?

If you are under 18, do not use herbal or "focus" supplements without a doctor's advice. Sleep, food, water and good study methods matter far more.

For adult students, some ingredients are being researched, but evidence is early. Lion's mane mushroom is one example: a 2023 pilot trial in 41 healthy adults aged 18 to 45 (Docherty and colleagues, Nutrients) found faster performance on one attention task 60 minutes after a dose, but no improvement in overall cognition or memory after 28 days, and the authors urged caution because of the small sample. If you are curious, read our lion's mane ingredient guide or our focus collection, and speak to a pharmacist first if you take any medicine. No supplement replaces sleep or revision.

See a doctor or get help if…

• anxiety or panic attacks stop you from studying or writing exams;
• low mood, tearfulness or hopelessness lasts more than two weeks;
• you cannot sleep for several nights in a row;
• you are using alcohol, pills or other substances to cope;
• you or someone you know talks about self-harm or not wanting to live: call SADAG on 0800 567 567, or emergency services on 112 or 10177.

Schools and universities also have counsellors and student wellness services. Ask early, not after results.

Frequently asked questions

Is it better to study at night or in the morning?

Choose times you can keep consistent. What matters most is regular sleep. Late-night sessions that push bedtime later every night tend to backfire.

How many hours a day should I study for matric finals?

There is no magic number. Several focused blocks with breaks, plus past papers, usually beat long unfocused hours. Quality and spacing count more than total time.

Should I pull an all-nighter before an exam?

No. Sleep supports memory consolidation, and research on students links steady sleep during the learning period with better grades.

Are energy drinks safe for teenagers?

EFSA suggests teens keep total caffeine to about 3 mg per kg of body weight a day, and a 2024 review linked energy drinks in young people with sleep problems and stress. It is best to avoid them.

Does lion's mane help you study?

Early human studies are small and mixed. It is not a study aid with proven effects, and under-18s should not use herbal supplements without a doctor's advice.

Sources

• Adesope OO, Trevisan DA, Sundararajan N. Rethinking the use of tests: a meta-analysis of practice testing. Review of Educational Research, 2017. ERIC
• Murray, Horner, Göbel. A meta-analytic review of the effectiveness of spacing and retrieval practice for mathematics learning. Educational Psychology Review, 2025. SpringerLink
• American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Teen sleep duration health advisory, 2016. aasm.org
• Okano K, Kaczmarzyk JR, Dave N, Gabrieli JDE, Grossman JC. Sleep quality, duration, and consistency are associated with better academic performance in college students. npj Science of Learning, 2019. MIT Gabrieli Lab
• University at Albany. Analysis finds mobile phone distractions adversely affect learning in young adults (meta-analysis in Computers in Human Behavior), 2024. albany.edu
• Garrett J, et al. A systematic review and Bayesian meta-analysis provide evidence for an effect of acute physical activity on cognition in young adults. Communications Psychology, 2024. Nature
• EUFIC. EFSA opinion on the safety of caffeine (2015). eufic.org
• Medical Xpress. Evidence shows risks associated with energy drinks in children (systematic review in Public Health), 2024. medicalxpress.com
• TimesLIVE. Matric stress? SADAG says mental health comes first, 2025. timeslive.co.za
• Docherty S, et al. The acute and chronic effects of lion's mane mushroom supplementation on cognitive function, stress and mood in young adults: a double-blind, parallel groups, pilot study. Nutrients, 2023. MDPI

This article is for general information only and isn't medical advice. Elevate gummies are food supplements and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Speak to your doctor or pharmacist before starting any supplement, especially if you are pregnant, breastfeeding, taking medication or have a medical condition.