Top 10 Benefits of Fasting in Ramadan

Overview

Fasting in Ramadan is one of the key pillars of Islam and is considered to be spiritual cleansing of the mind, body and soul. It entails numerous physical, spiritual and mental benefits. From an improved daily routine to weight management and healthier eating habits, fasting can be very helpful to remain young, fit and healthy. 

Fasting requires immense self-control to remain without food and water for roughly 12-14 hours a day. It can be a helpful practice for those who suffer from binge eating disorder, and for those who find it difficult to establish a correct eating pattern due to work and other priorities.

Benefits of Fasting

According to Experts, restricting food intake during the day can help prevent health problems such as high cholesterol, heart disease and obesity, as well as improve mental health.

So, do you want to know how fasting in Ramadan can be beneficial for you? Find out some amazing and surprising benefits of fasting on our overall well-being.

1. Detoxify

Fasting in the month of Ramadan is great for spiritually cleansing yourself and it also acts as a fantastic detox for your body. We can promote a healthy detox in Ramadan by sticking to a nutritious and healthy diet. By eating less with fewer calories and consuming healthier meals, the human body automatically goes into a detox mode. During fasting, glycogen becomes our body’s main energy source which gets turned off. Our body produces glycogen when we consume carbs, but in its absence, the body turns to fat reserves for burning energy. Naturally, this helps the body to shed extra pounds.

2. Get Rid of Bad Habits

Ramadan can invoke a desire to make changes in one’s life, such as removing bad habits and potentially replacing them with good habits. The month of Ramadan gives us a lesson of patience while being able to carry on with our everyday life during fasting. Ramadan is supposed to help you get away from things that could be harmful to your physical, as well as mental health. Some habits to avoid during fasting may be smoking and eating junk food. As you start abstaining from these habits during Ramadan, your body will gradually adapt to the new and healthy habits.

3. Weight Loss

Fasting in Ramadan can also be an easy and quick way to lose weight. Many studies have shown that fasting is a safe way to lose weight that is controlled within a set number of hours and allows the body to burn through fat cells more effectively than just regular dieting. When the body is undergoing the starvation process, the body turns to fat in order to utilize and burn any stored energy first leading to increased weight loss overtime. Incorporating fasting into your daily routine will promote greater fat loss with quicker results.

4. Speeds Up The Metabolism

Fasting gives your digestive system a rest, and this can energize your metabolism to burn calories more efficiently. Intermittent fasting can regulate your digestion and promote healthy bowel function, thus improving your gut health and metabolic function. Another obvious result of fasting maybe it prompts the liver’s enzymes to break down cholesterol and fats stimulating faster metabolism.

5. Improves Your Immune System

Fasting improves and heals the immune system gradually. As the immune system is largely comprised of white blood cells and fasting encourages your body to recycle any old white blood cells which result in a healthier, more robust immune system.

6. Mental Health

Fasting is a great way to balance your mind and reduce mental stress. A reduction in calorie, sugar and salt intake helps to strengthen the mind, sharpens focus and provides mental clarity.

Likewise, a distinct reduction in the amount of the hormone cortisol, produced by the adrenal gland, means that stress levels are greatly reduced both during and after Ramadan.

7. Helps to Prevent Acne and Fights Aging

Studies have shown that fasting could potentially slow down the ageing process, keeping you younger and fitter for longer and it could also potentially increase lifespan. Fasting leads to the production of restored tissues and cells within the human body, degrading unnecessary cells in the process. This enables you to produce collagen, leading to healthier and more radiant skin.

Eating a healthy diet with fewer calories after breaking the fast can decrease skin oil production, thus reducing outbreaks of acne.

8.  Lower Cholesterol

Since bad cholesterol is a major cause of several heart diseases and obesity, fasting in Ramadan is a great remedy for boosting your overall health. Fasting in Ramadan stimulates the lipid profile, it lowers blood cholesterol. Consequently, it prevents heart attacks, strokes, and other disorders.

If you follow a healthy diet post-Ramadan, the newly lowered cholesterol level should be easy to maintain.

9. Curbs Appetite

During fasting, your stomach stays empty for a longer period due to which it starts to shrink leading you to feel satisfied after a smaller meal than usual. When we begin to lose weight, it is initially excess water, then our body tends to use up our sugar stores (glycogen), which we store in our liver and muscles. Eventually, it will target our fat cells.

As our bodies get accustomed to how often we eat, a few days of fasting can drastically decrease our appetite in the long run. This process also increases the production of the thyroid hormone in the body, boosting your metabolism in the process.

10. Boost your Brain

The effect of fasting has a positive impact on the mental health and cognitive function of a person. The reason being the blood in the human body is filled with more endorphins during fasting which gives us a feeling of well-being.

Research has proven that fasting in Ramadan can make the brain more resilient to stress, more adaptable to change, and can improve mood, memory and even learning capacity.

Conclusion

Fasting in Ramadan is a good opportunity to cleanse the body, mind, and soul to keep yourself healthy. Practising self-control even after Ramadan will help us to detox our minds and bodies and reduce the production of stress hormones to live a fit life. That’s one of the reasons why most of us find it easier to practice healthy eating after Ramadan.

It is important to eat healthy and reasonably all year long. Keeping moderate portions and eating quality products first and foremost is the best way to keep fit. If you are having issues with weight gain or weight loss, you can book an online or physical consultation with the best doctors in Karachi. Visit https://www.shifaam.com or download the Shifaam Health App from Google PlayStore (bit.ly/2JqZo3C) or the iOS AppStore (apple.co/2QUVxQz). We are just a call 021-37132273 or Whatsapp 03477222273 away.

 

Importance of Ramadan – What Makes Ramadan Very Special?

Ramadan is the most precious month in the Islamic calendar (Hijri) and it is obligatory for the Muslims to fast in the month of Ramadan. Here are some interesting facts that shows the importance of Ramadan in Islam.

• Holy Quran was first revealed in the month of Ramadan.
• Fasting in the month of Ramadan is the fourth Pillar of Islam among the five.
• Fasting helps to attain Taqwa (performing of actions which please Allah and abstaining from those actions that displease Him).
• Ramadan is known to be the month of Quran. It is highly recommended in the Ramadan to read and study the Holy Quran and to share with others.
• The Night of Decree or The Night of Power (Laylat al-Qadr ) is in this month, which is better than a thousand months.
• In this Holy month, the gates of Paradise are opened, gates of Hell are closed and the devils are chained up.
• Umra’h (shorter/minor pilgrimage) in Ramadan is equivalent to Hajj (major pilgrimage).
• Muslims observe I’tikaaf (residing in the mosque for worship) in the Ramadan especially in the last 10 days of this Holy month.
• It is very rewarding act in Ramadan to offer Iftaar (sunset meal to break fast) to those who are fasting.
• It is also highly recommended to give Zakat (obligatory tax/donation – 2.5% of wealth/savings/assets) and Sadaqah (voluntary charity) in the Ramadaan.
• It is said in an authentic Hadith of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) that fasting in the Ramadan sincerely out of faith and in the hope of reward, we will be forgiven all our previous sins, provided the major sins are not committed.

How did the Rohingya crisis start?

 Beginning in 2012, the first incident occurred when a group of Rohingya men were accused of the rape and murder of a Buddhist woman (Albert 4). Buddhist nationalists retaliated by killing and burning Rohingya homes. The international community responded by denouncing this "campaign of ethnic cleansing"

The importance of a logo for your business. ... A logo is a combination of text and visual imagery that serves two purposes. It tells people the name of the companyand it creates a visual symbol that represents your business. Some logos havepowerful symbolic association connected to people's memory.

What is the Meaning of Life?

The question of the meaning of life is perhaps one that we would rather not ask, for fear of the answer or lack thereof.

Historically and still today, many people believe that humankind is the creation of a supernaturalentity called God, that God had an intelligent purpose in creating us, and that this intelligent purpose is the ‘meaning of life’. I do not propose to go through the various arguments for and against the existence of God. But even if God exists, and even if He had an intelligent purpose in creating us, no one really knows what this purpose might be, or that it is especially meaningful. The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that the entropy of a closed system such as the universe increases up to the point at which equilibrium is reached, and God’s purpose in creating us, and, indeed, all of nature, might have been no more lofty or uplifting than to catalyse this process in the same way that soil organisms catalyse the decomposition of organic matter.

If our God-given purpose is to act as super-efficient heat dissipators, then having no purpose at all is better than having this sort of purpose because it frees us to be the authors of our own purpose or purposes and so to lead truly dignified and meaningful lives. In fact, having no purpose at all is better than having any kind of pre-determined purpose, even more traditional ones such as to please or serve God or improve our karma. In short, even if God exists, and even if He had an intelligent purpose in creating us (and why should He have had?), we do not know what this purpose might be, and, whatever it might be, we would rather be able to do without it, or at least to ignore or discount it. For unless we can be free to become the authors of our own purpose or purposes, our lives may have, at worst, no purpose at all, and, at best, only some unfathomable and potentially trivial purpose that is not of our own choosing.

Some might object that not to have a pre-determined purpose is, really, not to have any purpose at all. But this is to believe that for something to have a purpose, it must have been created with a purpose in mind, and, moreover, must still be serving that original purpose. Some years ago, I visited the vineyards of Châteauneuf-du-Pape in the South of France. One evening, I picked up a beautiful rounded stone called a galet which I later took back to Oxford and put to good use as a book-end. In the vineyards of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, these stones serve to capture the heat of the sun and release it back into the cool of the night, helping the grapes to ripen. Of course, these stones were not created with this or any other purpose in mind. Even if they had been created for a purpose, it would almost certainly not have been to make great wine, serve as book-ends, or seem beautiful to passing human beings. That same evening over supper, I got my friends to blind taste a bottle of Bordeaux. To disguise the bottle, I slipped it into one of a pair of socks. Unlike the galet, the sock had been created with a clear purpose in mind, albeit one very different from (although not strictly incompatible with) the one that it had assumed on that joyful evening.https://bit.ly/2m5X1rf

Definition of social media

Social media is the collective of online communications channels dedicated to community-based input, interaction, content-sharing and collaboration.

Websites and applications dedicated to forums,microblogging, social networking, social bookmarking, social curation, and wikis are among the different types of social media.

Here are some prominent examples of social media:

• Facebook is a popular free social networking website that allows registered users to create profiles, upload photos and video, send messages and keep in touch with friends, family and colleagues. According to statistics from the Nielsen Group, Internet users within the United States spend more time on Facebook than any other website.
• Twitter is a free microblogging service that allows registered members to broadcast short posts called tweets. Twitter members can broadcast tweets and follow other users' tweets by using multiple platforms and devices.
• Google+ (pronounced Google plus) is Google's social networking project, designed to replicate the way people interact offline more closely than is the case in other social networking services. The project’s slogan is “Real-life sharing rethought for the web.”
• Wikipedia is a free, open content online encyclopedia created through the collaborative effort of a community of users known as Wikipedians. Anyone registered on the site can create an article for publication; registration is not required to edit articles. Wikipedia was founded in January of 2001.
• LinkedIn is a social networking site designed specifically for the business community. The goal of the site is to allow registered members to establish and document networks of people they know and trust professionally.
• Reddit is a social news website and forum where stories are socially curated and promoted by site members. The site is composed of hundreds of sub-communities, known as "subreddits." Each subreddit has a specific topic such as technology, politics or music. Reddit site members, also known as, "redditors," submit content which is then voted upon by other members. The goal is to send well-regarded stories to the top of the site's main thread page.
• Pinterest is a social curation website for sharing and categorizing images found online. Pinterest requires brief descriptions but the main focus of the site is visual. Clicking on an image will take you to the original source, so, for example, if you click on a picture of a pair of shoes, you might be taken to a site where you can purchase them. An image of blueberry pancakes might take you to the recipe; a picture of a whimsical birdhouse might take you to the instructions.

Brian Solis created the following social media chart, known as the conversation prism, to categorize social sites and services into various types of social media

What is Facebook?

Facebook is a social networking site that makes it easy for you to connect and sharewith your family and friends online. Originally designed for college students, Facebook was created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg while he was enrolled at Harvard University. By 2006, anyone over the age of 13 with a valid email address could join Facebook. Today, Facebook is the world's largest social network, with more than 1 billion users worldwide.