First time PoE Player with question about zone/player levels

I understand that there are drop penalties if you are -2/+2 levels off the monster level and a roughly a 6 level cushion for my character level(36) to monster level difference for the XP penalty.

I am currently level 36 about 75% done with Act 3. I am already 4+ levels about the zone levels. I dont want my drops penalized, is there anything I can do?

Should I just rush through zones/acts and stop clearing areas?
That's not something I want to do, just seeing if I have any alternatives or if maybe I am misunderstanding the penalty/level ratio properly.

Thanks in advance.

the only drops that are penalize are currency. this is to prevent high level characters from farming low level zones. This will not affect you as long as you keep progressing in the story. Dont worry about it.

Not worth worrying about. It only affects currency drops and only by 2.5% per level after 2 levels and only exp penalty is applied if you are below zone lvl. Ideally you want to be a level or two below zone lvl when progressing, but seeing that you are new better be a bit overleveled and stronger than efficient :)

Also since you kill more thank way it probably makes up for the little penalty you are getting :D


And Wiki page on drop rates if you care about numbers

Cool, thanks.
If it's just currency then I don't mind, but it looks like it may affect the Divination drops as well, still not a huge deal.