how i made my two-hour tahajjud easy: diet and fasting. Pt. 6

If you remember in the part 1 in these series of posts that was about ‘waking up, and staying awake’ for taHajjud, I mentioned a science backed habit loop that has been biologically proven to show how we are wired, remember?

There, I mentioned that the brain weighs less than two percent of the body, but uses more than twenty percent of the body’s energy because of the many many many stuff it has to do. So, what the brain does is that it wraps what is called myelin around a memory that one does every time because it believes we need it, so that the next time the body wants to access that memory, it won’t have to expend as much energy.

Say, for instance, it uses 10$ worth of energy when you drive, and every time you drive, it’s spending 10$, but what the brain has figured out is that if it wraps myelin around that memory, it can be spending less than 1$ whenever you want to access the memory. And now, it can use the remaining 9$ to work on other memory that you access often. 😎

And that’s the trick with ‘practice makes perfect’, the myelin is like the rubber material around one’s phone charger or any coated wire, that makes sure that the wire in it conducts properly. The stronger the myelin, the stronger the conduction, and in our case, the more we do a task, the more myelin will be wrapped around it, and the less we do a task, the brain starts cutting back on the myelin supply to that memory, and repurposes it for some other task.

And all of that is summarized in these 3 words, Cue, Routine, and Reward. In our case, Cue will be the alarm that wakes us up for taHajjud, you know, the external factor that starts us up, and the Routine will be the taHajjud itself, the last bit is the Reward, and this bit is as important. It is one of the reasons, as I mentioned in part 5, that I recite Q33 V43 in my Witri to kickstart the Reward bit; therein, Allah says, ‘It is He who confers blessing upon you, and His angels [ask Him to do so] that He may bring you out from darknesses into the light. And ever is He, to the believers, Merciful.’ 🥰

So, I remind my self of the reward of Dhikr, that spiritually, I’m being transitioned from darkness into light, that Allah is sending Solawat upon me, and so are the Angels, and it makes the struggles of the night worth it. I remind my self of Hadith Qudsi 15 wherein Allah said ‘…I am with him when he makes mention of Me. If he makes mention of Me to himself, I make mention of him to Myself…’ and I’m soothed. 😍

Added to this mental reward cycle is also the physical reward cycle, it makes sure that more dopamine is released into the system, and by so doing, the brain has something material to create myelin with, and get it to wrap around the routine behavior one is trying to turn into a sustainable habit; and what is this physical reward? Food. 🤪

It need not be just food, one can stick to something that’s not tangible, like a mental pat on the back, or any other form of reward scheme that one truly genuinely finds satisfying. For the Reward to release dopamine, it has to be something one finds to be a reward, or else, it won’t be sustainable. Someone else may choose to play video games (I don’t play them, I don’t know how to play them 🤦🏿‍♂️). Whatever it is for you, as long as it is permissible and it is done in moderation, you should be fine. 👍🏿

Anyway, back to food. I choose food because, one, I just stood for more than an hour, I’m thirsty and hungry. Two, it’s time for ‘break-fast 🙄’ anyway. And so, I make me some nice whatever food I’ve planned, mostly burrito wraps with my own stuffings, quick, easy and made for me. 😁

As you can imagine, after doing this for a while, I thought to myself, why not just fast the day, I seldom eat lunch anyway, that way, it’s like I’m just eating breakfast and dinner, and that’s what I did. I don’t fast weekends, days I’ll be on the road or any of such other days that may be really hard on my schedule. The Fasting is not part of the Reward, it just happens to flow with the Reward. As you can imagine, the days I fast, I’m lighter during taHajjud, and the opposite on days I’m not fasting, but I find that eating a little at dinner helps alleviate the heaviness on such days. 👊🏿

Which takes us to the food itself. As Muslims, hopefully, pig, pig related foods and all other haram foods aren’t in our culinary forte. As for meat, fish, eggs, milk, cheese and the likes, I try to reduce them as much as possible. Without going through the science of how they inhibit the flow of energy in the system, it suffices to say that the only vitamin in animal products that we can’t get elsewhere is vitamin B12. And as I have written in part 1 of this series, even animal product eaters don’t get enough from the animals they eat anyway, and have to take vitamin B12 supplements too to get its required daily dosage. So, what’s the point of eating them when one doesn’t even get enough of B12 from eating them? Moreover, the World Health Organization and other Health Organizations have found that a diet that’s high in red and processed meat intake are associated with an increased risk of diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and both processed meat and salted fish have been classified as Group 1 Carcinogens. And do you know the other things that are classified as group 1 carcinogens? I gotchu; Asbestos (in all its forms), HIV, Plutonium, alcohol beverages, tobacco (smoker, secondhand smoker, even when they are smokeless) and the list goes on. So, when we eat meat, we are essentially ingesting asbestos, plutonium and even tobacco. 😳 You can go here for a comprehensive list of Group 1 carcinogens, and here for the bad effects of red meat.

So, for me, meat isn’t an every day affair. I haven’t made it haram for myself, I eat it maybe once or twice a week, and even if I do stay away from it for those that do stay away from it totally, I find that it is akin to finding out that peanuts are harmful for you, despite it being halal, one can decide to stay away from it because of its life threatening effects on one. And the fact that we don’t physically see that of the animal and animal based products as immediate as we see that of a peanut allergy doesn’t mean that we aren’t getting irreversibly sick within. 🤔

The books of seerah have shown us that it’s not that the Prophet pbuh and his companions were eating meat on a daily basis either. Reports have it that months will go by without anything being cooked in the house of the Prophet pbuh. He’d have to, for months long, eat just dates and drink water. And sometimes, he pbuh and some of his companions will have to tie rocks on their stomach so as not to feel the pangs of hunger that they are experiencing. In a world that didn’t have the ability to isolate and extract vitamin B12, and very low food to choose from, they didn’t even have rice back in the time of the Prophet pbuh, eating meat, albeit rarely, may not have affected them adversely especially considering how much they went without food willingly and unwillingly.

Anyway, just something to note when choosing food to eat for sahur and iftar, and I have done this long enough to know that a cheese burger will make you heavy and slow, and that’s if you are able to even keep your eyes open. You can try it and see for your self. See how you feel on your meat days and on your no-meat days during taHajjud. 👍🏿

If you are in the America, and you want to give meat-alternatives a try, you should try Beyond Burger at Sam’s Club. 400F if using a foil pan or 375F if using a steel pan, 20 minutes per side. I cut those into small chunks, and add to my morning burrito, maybe I’ll do a little video of the said burrito on my YouTube channel one of these days, InshaAllah. 🤲🏿

Talking of Sahur and Iftar etiquette, I should mention something about water intake. Based on how much water you like to drink, you can drink as much as you want at sahur, but as for Iftar, you can start big and work your way down, or start small and work your way up. This is so that you know your threshold, that way, when you wake up for taHajjud at 2am or 3am, the urge to pee isn’t threatening to disrupt your almost 2 hour stand.

As for exercising, I recommend running, if you can that is, it works on your leg strength, breath strength, heart strength, and a whole lot more, as much as you can, as little as you can, running is definitely a plus. 👍🏿

Back to harmful food talk, I took the 5Strands Food Intolerance Test at Home Hair Collection Kit, that tests over 600 Food Intolerances and Sensitivities, and one of the reasons I recommend it for those that can afford it is because, you know those itches that come and go during taHajjud, those one you couldn’t help but soothe by scratching; you know those farts that come almost all the way when you ruku’, and oh, when you sujud too 🤪, trust me, been there; and those bloated-ness that deprives one of comfort when trying to focus on the words of the Creator; all of those discomforts and more can be due to the food that you eat.

It’s a personalized food classification system that tells you food you shouldn’t eat, those you may dabble into, and those you should eat. It tells you if you are lactose intolerant, which may be why you are feeling bloated, rushing to the restroom, being weak and the likes. It tells you which seafood you can eat, and what salt to use and not use in your cooking. I have found that switching to Himalayan salt instead of sea salt that I’m used to using got rid of my eczema for instance, and of course, no eczema related itches surfaces afterwards. And knowing what food is good for you and which isn’t good for you and their effects will be experienced if one follows through with their recommendations. 👍🏿

For us, it’s an act of ibadah too, right? Because we are keeping ourselves healthy, long enough, to be able to worship Allah as long as Gẹ will have us worship. After all, isn’t our life a trust? One that we are accountable for, one that we shouldn’t wrong, one that if kept healthy, is able to get one to fulfill one’s life purpose, the Worship of Allah, as seen in Q51 V56; and if we don’t keep it healthy, will make this purpose hard if not impossible to achieve.

May Allah ease our affairs, Amin. And with this, we conclude this series on how I have come to make my 2-hour taHajjud easy. InshaAllah, it helps you, and you pass this on to others so that it can also help them also. Amin. Assallamu Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh.