Author: Andrei Bilog M.Sc., CAPM

If you’re a student in healthcare or biotech, you probably know this feeling:
Three exams in the same week.
Two lab reports due.
A lecture you’re trying to keep up with.
And somehow you’re expected to retain hundreds of terms, pathways, and concepts.

It’s not just “being busy.”
It’s learning fatigue.

And the science suggests that the way exams and study schedules are structured can significantly affect performance, stress, and even long-term learning.

Programs in healthcare, biology, and biotechnology are notoriously dense. Students often have to absorb large amounts of information in short periods of time before exams, which creates intense cognitive pressure and stress. (Wikipedia)

When the schedule becomes chaotic—multiple exams, long lectures, and extended study sessions—the brain simply starts to run out of mental energy.

Research on cognitive fatigue shows that performance can decline as mental resources become depleted during sustained cognitive tasks. In fact, one large study found that test scores decline as exams are taken later in the day due to accumulated mental fatigue. (PubMed Central)

This matters because many students interpret poor performance as lack of intelligence or preparation.

But sometimes the issue is simpler:
Your brain is tired.

Cognitive science consistently shows that mentally demanding work accumulates strain.

One study examining study patterns found that students who engaged in long periods of mentally demanding work experienced increased fatigue and distress, especially when studying for more than four hours at a time. (PubMed Central)

Over time, this can lead to what researchers call student burnout, which is increasingly common in demanding programs such as medicine and biomedical sciences. (PubMed Central)

Burnout doesn’t just affect mental health.

It also reduces academic engagement, motivation, and performance.

For students training to become healthcare professionals, that combination can be dangerous.

Another issue is how students prepare for exams.

When deadlines pile up, many students switch into survival mode:
late nights, cramming, and marathon study sessions.

But research consistently shows that distributed learning (spreading study sessions over time) is far more effective than cramming, which tends to produce shallow short-term recall instead of deep understanding. (Wikipedia)

Recent research also shows that spaced learning reduces cognitive fatigue compared to massed studying. (De Gruyter Brill)

In other words:

Cramming doesn’t just hurt retention.

It literally exhausts your brain.

As someone who teaches anatomy and physiology labs while also working in biotech, I see this pattern every semester.

Students are often extremely capable and hardworking.

But their schedules look like this:

By Friday, many of them are mentally drained.

I can see it in the classroom.
Students who normally participate suddenly go quiet.
Simple questions become harder to answer.

Ironically, this happens right when the material gets more complex.

I’ve also experienced the other side as a professional.

Balancing teaching, work in biotech, and graduate coursework means there are days when my brain simply cannot process more information.

The lesson I’ve learned—and what I tell my students—is this:

Mental energy is a limited resource.

You have to manage it intentionally.

The research—and my experience—points to a few practical strategies.

Spacing study sessions improves retention and reduces fatigue.

Long continuous study sessions (>4 hours) can increase mental strain and reduce learning efficiency.

Breaks and recovery periods improve cognitive performance and test outcomes.

Healthcare and biotech careers require conceptual thinking, not just recall.

Students entering healthcare and biotechnology are training for professions that demand precision, critical thinking, and resilience.

But if the learning environment becomes a constant cycle of exam overload and fatigue, students may confuse exhaustion with inability.

The reality is this:

Learning isn’t just about effort.
It’s about energy management.

The smartest students aren’t always the ones studying the longest.

Often, they’re the ones who learn how to protect their cognitive bandwidth so their brain can actually do the work.

And in fields where people’s health and lives are involved, that skill might be just as important as anything taught in the classroom.

Disclaimer: This article was assisted by AI-based language tools (ChatGPT, OpenAI) for drafting and organization. All content was reviewed by the author, and all claims are supported by peer-reviewed sources.

Blasche, G., et al. (2023). Mentally demanding work and strain: Effects of study load on fatigue and distress. Frontiers in Psychology.

Chong, L. Z., et al. (2025). Student burnout: A review on factors contributing to burnout in tertiary education. Educational Psychology Review.

Jensen, J. L., et al. (2013). Investigating the effects of exam length on performance and cognitive fatigue in undergraduate biology courses. CBE—Life Sciences Education.

Sievertsen, H. H., et al. (2016). Cognitive fatigue influences students’ performance on standardized tests. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Heidari, K. (2025). Cognitive fatigue induced by spaced and massed practice. International Review of Applied Linguistics.