It’s December 26, and you are looking around your neighborhood with a feeling of sadness. All of that excitement you had about the countdown to Christmas is now over. The lights will soon come down from rooftops, the ornaments will be taken off of Christmas trees, and all the wrapping paper will finally be picked up off the floor after numerous days of you stepping on it have passed.

For several people, the post-Christmas blues end up lasting for longer than just a few days. With the typically cold and rainy month of January looming, it’s hard for many to see anything to be excited about for the next couple of weeks. Here at YLHS, students especially dread returning to classes after the long break, as finals week prep begins shortly after the two-week hiatus.

Unfortunately, this can cause students to become really stressed about all of their upcoming tests and projects, while already trying their best to get over the holiday blues and simply get back into school mode after the long break. Students begin to feel extremely unmotivated at a time where motivation is more essential than any other time in the semester.

Though it may seem as if there is no way to feel positive about the first few weeks back from the break, there are indeed some ways we can gain motivation to get through finals week. One of the ways we can keep ourselves ready to tackle the ending weeks of the semester is by getting an adequate amount of sleep every night. According to an article from the National Sleep Foundation, “teenagers need about 8 to 10 hours of sleep a night to function best in school.” Try to get a greater amount of rest than usual not only during the week of the big tests itself, but in the days leading up to finals, as just that extra bit of sleep can help dramatically improve your confidence and focus in a time of high stress.

According to YLHS student Greta Morris (11), she stays motivated after returning from the break by, “thinking about all of the hard work she did this semester that will go to waste if she lets her grades fall now.” Although getting back in the groove of doing homework and completing tests is hard after the second longest break of the school year, Greta makes a terrific point in stating that we can’t let all of our efforts throughout the semester not be worth as much as they were before January just because of a three-week lapse. 

It is definitely tough to get used to everything school related after spending a good amount of time doing things not school related in the slightest. However, we can begin to see light at the end of the tunnel as finals week comes to a close, and summer quickly approaches with each passing day. 

Good luck on your finals, Mustangs!