Fasting has recently increased in its popularity as many do it for dietary and health issues. However, fasting has been around for decades, as it is a part of many religions and cultures. In this post – 5 Benefits of Fasting on Health & Productivity. We’ll take a look at why fasting can be beneficial not only to health but also to your mind and productivity gains.
In Islam, it is compulsory for all mature Muslims to fast, as it is one of the five pillars of Islam. It is defined as the abstinence from all foods and drinks for a set period of time, there are many different ways of fasting. In general, most types of fasts are performed over 24–72 hours. Intermittent fasting, on the other hand, involves cycling between periods of eating and fasting, ranging from a few hours to a few days at a time.
You may ask, how does staying hungry improve health, benefit my mind and increase productivity? That is a good question, which science is just realising and attempting to answer, how beneficial fasting can be to wellbeing.
From health, perspective fasting helps in managing or eliminating diseases like:
- Fasting improves the condition of people suffering from mild to moderate diseases, such as; non-insulin dependent diabetes, essential hypertension, lowering blood sugar levels, lowering of cholesterol and lowering of the lipids profile.
- Fasting improves digestive health and weight management. Fasting for periods shorter than 24 hours (intermittent fasting) has been shown to be effective for weight loss in obese and healthy adults. Taking a light walk before breaking fast will speed up your metabolism and promote weight loss.
Now let’s take a look at how fasting can improve brain function:
- Fasting improves brain function and productivity. Fasting upsurges a process known as autophagy. It disposes of damaged molecules, ones that may be tied to neurological diseases. According to Wikipedia – Autophagy is the natural, regulated mechanism of the cell that removes unnecessary or dysfunctional components. It allows the orderly degradation and recycling of cellular components. After the disposable new brain cells are created via a process called neurogenesis, which helps to establish new connections in the brain and may very well improve your cognitive abilities.
The other thing which helps brain function better when your fasting is the mind-set, you set in your mind that your activities for the day have to be done by a certain time so that you can break your fast and start to eat again. Because of that focus on getting the tasks at hand completed, you are less likely to spend time eating, chit-chatting, therefore consuming time on activities which will not be adding value. Only focusing on those that help you get activities completed so that you can relax and break your fast.
Fasting helps develop self-control and better mindset:
- In addition to fasting from food and drink, fasting also includes abstaining from impure and unkind thoughts and actions. The Prophet (PBUH) said, “If one slanders you or aggresses against you, say I am fasting.” Positive behaviour is a natural stress reducer. Research has shown that positive thinking may improve physical well-being, produce lower feelings of depression and produce lower levels of distress. Choosing piety over retaliation and purity over impulse relax the mind.
As you learn to control yourself through fasting, you are developing in your mind the required skills to control instincts that lead you to destructive and negative thought processes, actions which may lead to mood swings and so on are controlled. You start to think positively and appreciate what you have, when you do get around to eating again.
- The increased prayer during Ramadan is also a confirmed stressed reducer. Harold Koenig, M.D., associate professor of medicine and psychiatry at Duke University found in his research, “People who are more religious tend to become depressed less often. When they do become depressed, they recover more quickly.”
More and more health and wellbeing gurus are advocating ‘ME’ time, solitude or meditation time – they are advising people to be grateful, think positive, ask for what they. Some experts with religious affiliations will urge you to pray to God, while others will say ask the universe for what you want and you will get it. I being a Muslim will say – Ask God or Allah for what you want and with sufficient gratefulness and patience you will get it if it is the best for you.
So, fasting does have health benefits as confirmed by science now, it also improves your mind and the ability to control yourself and your urges. It also results in productivity gains, due to health and brain improvements.
