Studying for Nursing Exams But Feeling Burnt out and Tired?
There’s a point in every nursing degree where the thought of revising for an exam or sitting down to write an assignment just feels overwhelming.
You’ve just finished a 12-hour placement shift. Your feet ache. Your brain is foggy. You still need to cook, shower, reply to university emails and somehow revise for an exam that could decide whether you progress into the next year.
In the UK, student nurses juggle full-time placements, academic deadlines, long commutes, and the emotional weight of caring for patients everyday. Often with very little downtime to regroup, refresh and rest. Burnout isn’t a weakness. It’s a natural response to being constantly switched on. This is the cruel reality of being a student nurse.
Assessments don’t pause just because you’re exhausted.
If you’re revising while tired, overwhelmed, and wondering how everyone else seems to cope better than you, this post is for you. You don’t need unrealistic productivity hacks, you need practical ways to study when your energy is low and your motivation is even lower.
Here are my practical ways to revise when you’re running on empty:
See Also:
Burnout in Nursing
OSCE Marking Criteria: Explained
NCLEX vs NMC OSCE
Stop Aiming For Perfect – Aim For ‘Enough’
When you’re burnt out, trying to revise for hours usually leads to:
- Staring at notes
- Rereading the same paragraph
- Feeling worse about yourself
Instead, use small, realistic chunks:
- 20 minutes of focused revision
- 5 minute break
- Repeat once or twice
Even 40 minutes on a tired day is progress. May sure that you plan for these, and you know what it is you will be revising before you start. This way, you won’t waste 5 minutes deciding what to revise. When you’re tired, your decision-making skills are the first to suffer. Be specific – I’m going to revise weight-based medication calculation formulas not I’m going to revise mediations. This is way too much in your current state. Little and often is the way forward.
Next Watch: Common reasons Student Nurse Fail Assignments on my YouTube Channel
Match Your Revision to Your Energy Level
Not all studying needs the same brain power. When you are exhausted, you retain less information. So, it’s good to revise in a way that requires less energy for your brain to retain.
Low energy days (post-placement, mentally drained):
- Watch short YouTube revision videos
- Read summaries instead of full textbooks
- Use flashcards
- Listen to nursing podcasts/audio notes
Higher energy days:
- Practice exam questions
- Mind maps
- Teaching topics out loud
- Research
Look at what time of day best suits your energy output. If you’re less productive in the morning, then set any high energy tasks for the afternoon. If you’re unsure when you’re more productive, do a self-audit. Chart your energy levels each hour from 0 to 5 and see where you can build your high and low energy tasks.
Next Read: OSCE Marking Criteria Explained: What Examiners Really Want From Student Nurses
Use Real Placement Experiences to Make Revision Easier
One of the biggest mistakes students make when they’re exhausted is trying to memorise long lists of symptoms, medications, and procedures straight from textbooks. Your brain just does not have that capacity when it’s tired.
Instead, link your revision to what you’ve already seen on placement. Your brain remembers stories and experiences far better than isolated facts.
For example:
When revising sepsis, don’t just read the criteria. Think about a real patient you looked after. What their observations were like, how quickly they deteriorated, what actions the team took, and how urgent everything felt. Picture the NEWS score rising, the blood cultures being taken, the IV antibiotics being prescribed. Suddenly sepsis isn’t a list, it’s a real situation your brain can replay.
When revising medications, imagine a drug round you’ve taken part in. Recall checking allergies, calculating doses, scanning wristbands, and explaining medications to patients. Link specific drugs to patients you remember. Pain relief after surgery, insulin before meals, antibiotics on the ward. This helps you remember not just names, but indications, safety checks, and side effects.
When revising anatomy and physiology, connect it to procedures you’ve seen.
Think about:
- Lungs when you watched oxygen therapy being started
- Veins when you observed cannulation
- Kidneys when monitoring fluid balance
- The heart when patients were on cardiac monitors
Seeing it in real life creates mental “hooks” that make information easier to understand and recall. You learn better when you can visualise something.
For pocket prompts to help you give safe effective nursing handovers – check out my Complete Nursing Handover Pocket Pack!
Create A ‘Bare Minimum’ Revision Plan
On overwhelmed weeks, don’t plan like you’re superhuman. A plan to write 1500 words of your assignment after a 12-hour shift is setting yourself up to fail.
Instead, try:
- 3 priority topics per week
- 1–2 short sessions per day
- Rest days built in
Write a realistic plan, not a Pinterest one. The 3 priorities list is something I still use now at home and when I’m on shift. When you are overwhelmed and tired, it’s hard to quiet the noise and focus on what you need to do when there’s so much to do. Having three priorities ensures that the biggest most valuable topics are covered. When you start to feel foggy, look back at your priorities. A good idea is to put them somewhere you can see, like on a post-it note on your laptop. This way they are visible, and you are less likely to procrastinate.
Check out my Nurse in Progress Book Series – For practical tips on placements, study hacks and how to survive your Nursing Degree! Written by a Nurse will on the floor with you.
Look After The Basic – They Affect Your Brain More Than You Think
When you’re burnt out, revision feels harder because your body is struggling. You need to look after yourself if you want your brain to help you revise. There are small things you can do that will lead to big differences in energy levels.
Try to prioritise:
- Sleep (even 30 minutes more helps memory)
- Water (dehydration = brain fog)
- Proper meals (not just caffeine and snacks)
This isn’t self-care fluff, it genuinely improves concentration, mood and your ability to retain information.
Sleep – try a winging down for bed routine. Remove screens an hour before bedtime and bring that bedtime back half an hour each night until you are getting 7-8 hours of quality sleep a night. Everyone needs a different number of hours to function properly, find yours and make a plane to get enough.
Water – it is easy to forget to drink when you’re stuck behind a laptop for 6 hours. And coffee doesn’t count as this will dehydrate you further. Keep a water bottle as part of your study space and aim to fill it up at least twice in a study session. The refill will give you a break from screens and refocus when you get back.
Proper meals – sugar, fat and carbs are a lethal combo for progression. This is because they make you feel tired and sugar crashes are a real revision killer. Instead, snack on fruit and nuts to give you long lasting fullness. Meal prepping can really help when you know it is going to be a heavy week. Spending an hour cooking on a Sunday can save you 4-6 hours a week. That’s a great amount of extra study time.
Looking after your wellbeing through your nursing degree and when qualified is the difference between okay and exceptional nursing care. You can’t pour from an empty teapot, and that’s why I’ve created a Nursing Wellbeing Journal for you to check in weekly and monthly to keep burnout at bay.
Ask For Support Early
There comes a point where being “a bit tired” turns into constant exhaustion, brain fog, tears over simple tasks. The red flag is waving if you feel like you’re falling behind no matter how hard you try. When burnout reaches this stage, it isn’t something you can just push through with better revision techniques.
Struggling to study doesn’t mean you’re not capable. It usually means you’re overwhelmed and need some support.
Nursing courses in the UK have systems in place to help students through exactly this, but many of us don’t use them because we feel guilty, weak, or like we should cope better. The truth is, asking for help is part of being a safe, resilient nurse.
If burnout is starting to affect your ability to concentrate, meet deadlines, or cope emotionally, it’s time to reach out.
Practical steps that really help:
- Speak to your personal tutor about how you’re feeling
- Use university wellbeing and mental health services
- Ask for extensions or support plans if things feel unmanageable
Lean on friends on the course who understand the pressure
You Deserve Support… Not Silence
You are not the only student nurse who feels this way, even if it seems like everyone else is coping better. A nursing degree is one of the hardest courses you are allowed to take. Burnout is common in demanding courses like nursing, and this is because you’re balancing placements, exams, and real-life responsibilities. What other university course demands all this of one person – at the same time? Were like the marines of the real world.
Getting support early can make the difference between struggling in silence and actually getting through this tough slog with your wellbeing intact.
You don’t have to be strong all the time. But in order to keep going, it means letting others help. Support exists and you deserve to use it.
Next for you:
- Check out my Nurse in Progress Book Series
- Watch clinical skills walk throughs on my YouTube Channel
Look through my FREE Resources to help you revise for assignments, exams and OSCEs!
