Sleepy puppy is sleepy.

Top Six Ways to Keep Yourself Calm Before the December 2010 LSAT
Around about 12:00 this morning, the date changed from November 30th to December 1st. Strictly speaking, there was no big change, no tidal shift rocking our respective worlds. Many of you kept sleeping, some of you kept drinking, and others of you kept studying.

But this shuffling of calendar pages opened significant wounds in the psyches of LSAT students. In the halcyon days of November, you could all rest easy and claim that you still had a month until the exam, that there was little to worry about. Perhaps it has something to do with our inability to subtract, or our lack of awareness about how many days are in each month. Whatever the case, when some dreaded deadline is headlined by a different month, it does not come coupled with a pressing sense of urgency.

Well, that’s all out the window. December 1st marks shit getting real. You now have ten days left to stuff yourself full of LSAT knowledge. Other, better men (and women) can provide you advice on how to study over the next week and a half. What I’m here to do is provide you with some easy ways to make sure you don’t freak out entirely before next Saturday. Without further ado, here are your top six ways to avoid a complete mental breakdown in the next ten days.

1. Do Not Over Study. It always comes as a shock to me that people think studying for 8 to 10 hours a day is an effective way of studying for a reasoning based test. I get cramming for a history test, or a chemistry test, or some such. What I don’t get is the idea that making yourself mentally exhausted is the best way to study for a test that will involve a greater need for concentrated mental acuity than almost anything you’ve ever done in your life. I’d wager to say that it would almost be better to NOT study at all than to study for 8 to 10 hours per day leading up to the test.

2. Sleep a Considerable Amount. I’ve devised a formula, through much trial and error throughout the last ten years or so of my life: If you don’t sleep, you start acting insane. And when you start acting insane, things don’t get done the way they should get done. Many of you are going to be so stressed over the next ten days that you’re going to spend the majority of your time drinking coffee and staring at (not studying) your LSAT books. Get some sleep instead. Try to crank out at least seven to eight hours, but I kinda call bullshit on the idea of eight hours being optimal. Instead, shoot for ten. Dr. Blueprint says so.

3. Watch The Walking Dead Season Finale on Sunday. Seriously. It’s sick. And there’s no better way to get your mind off the LSAT for a little while than to watch a show about a zombie apocalypse. If the studying isn’t going well, maybe you’ll even wish for it.

4. Finish Thanksgiving Leftovers. I don’t recommend getting loaded up on tryptophan and sleeping for the next three days, so if there is too much turkey, try to spread it out a little. But keep yourself relatively sated on turkey and stuffing so you have some reminder of when life was good a little under a week ago.

5. Do Not Try Any New Psycho-Active Substances. Put down the crack pipe, guys. Now is not the time to test out what combination of Nyquil and Quaaludes will keep you totally focused on test day. Stick to your normal routines, whatever they may be. Don’t rock the boat this late in the game (the boat being your poor, addled brain).

6 . Get an Appreciable Amount of Some. Don’t walk into test day having neglected one of your important bodily functions as a red-blooded, goddamn American. If you’ve got a boyfriend/girlfriend or extremely soft pillow, then make sure you keep doing what nature intended. Keep yourself relaxed the best way we all know how.