This time of the year is very stressful for students.

With midterms underway, balancing schoolwork and studying can feel overwhelming. However, self-care can be just as important as preparing for midterms.

The Evergreen Online has interviewed experts and conducted researched into some of the best ways to relieve stress during midterms. Here’s what we found:

Sleep is a crucial aspect of self-care during this stressful time. In fact, studies show that more sleep boosts your thinking ability. A Baylor University study on the connection between sleep and test-taking proved that students who got at least eight hours of sleep a night performed significantly better on their final exams than the students who slept less than eight hours.

In addition to getting a good night’s rest, performing well on your midterms is greatly affected by your study habits.

Upper School Learning Specialist Grace Kiang believes that finding study habits that work best for you is a key aspect of performing your best on any assessment.

“I think that the first step to performing your best is to gather your information,” Kiang said. “It is important to know what you are walking in to. Look at how many tests you will have, what they will look like and from there, start preparing as much review material as possible. Then, think about the classes you’re taking, and mentally rank them from what your hardest test will be to what your easiest test will be so that you can plan on how much time each individual subject will take you to prepare for.”

Setting goals and curating a study schedule for yourself will make the process of preparing and studying much more effective. It is important to take it step-by-step so that you are able to retain more information daily, instead of cramming for the midterm the night before.

One more important aspect of preparing for midterms is making sure that you maintain a healthy and balanced diet. The link between nutrition, development and academic performance is clear, and studies show that students who have diets lacking in fruits, vegetables and healthy proteins tend to have lower test scores than their peers.