You’ve got to take good care of your ship so you don’t get shipwrecked along the way.  You want to reach your destination intact and fully functioning.

You will need a healthy lifestyle to reach your peak mental condition.  This is where you want to be when you take the ACT, so that you can showcase your can give your peak performance on the exam. What does a healthy lifestyle mean? It means you need good nutrition (seriously, watch the junk food – it isn’t helping you – you need brain food!), regular exercise (this is a great way to relieve stress, too), and you need good sleep.  You need these things while you are taking this class as well as heading into the test.  Why is that?  Well think about it…if you are exhausted, staying up all night playing video games, eating junk food, and never moving your body, you will find yourself mentally and physically depleted.  If you cannot function at peak performance while you are studying and preparing, then how will you perform well on test day? And if you show up on test day tired, malnourished, and feeling sickly and stressed, how do you think you will perform on the test? You are very much like an athlete in training here.  If you are a student athlete, then you know what that means – it means hard work, commitment, and practice, practice, practice.  Doing these things will get you where you want to be for the ACT.

You’ve also got to have balance to keep your ship in good shape.  Don’t think that obsessing over the ACT and studying continuously will make you an even stronger student.  What it will make you is burned out!  You’ve got to have a good balance of work, play, and rest.  Be sure to take breaks.  Make time for time with family and friends.  Your brain will perform best when it is given time to rest, decompress and process all the information you are pouring into it.