There is a du’a that the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) gave to conquer laziness. (اللَّهُمَّ إِنِّى أَعُوذُ بِكَ مِنَ الْعَجْزِ وَالْكَسَلِ)
What’s beautiful about it is that when he teaches us a du’a to ask Allah to protect us from something, it shows us that this is a disease.
And besides the du’a part, the Prophet Muhammad (صلى الله عليه وسلم), he taught us to always act on it as well. So don’t just make the du’a, and then run away, and think that things are going to be better. The du’a is the first part, but you have to also take your action as well, right?
Tie your camel and then trust in Allah as we’re taught in the hadith. What are some practical tips to increase energy levels and to conquer the disease of laziness? The first tip that I can give is that we need to look into our sleep habit and our sleep pattern. If you want to have a successful day, then you need to make sure that you go to bed early the night before.
A lot of times, because of Facebook, because of the internet, because of iPhones because of iPads, because of smartphones, and the internet and all of these things, It’s really difficult to go to bed on time, because we’ll get caught browsing something, or we’ll get caught watching Netflix, or we’ll play a video game, or watch a game on TV like a sports’ game.
Now the NBA playoffs are on. And what this does is it cuts down our sleep time. And then we have to wake up for either school or work and definitely have to wake up for Fajr. And so our quality of the next day is lessened because we didn’t get enough time to re-energize our bodies the night before.
And so going to bed at 1 a.m., 2 a.m., 3 a.m., and then waking up at 6 a.m. for Fajr. That’s not really a solid plan, and often times people will fail, right? And even if you do wake up at 6 a.m. for Fajr, it’s not going to be the highest quality of prayer. Remember, the aim of prayer is to have a high and good quality prayer.
I mean you can pray in 30 seconds each time, but you want to make sure that you have some sort of meaningful quality prayer with Allah (سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى) each time that we pray the five times a day. And wallahi, the older you get, the more you realize how true it is. You do need a solid night’s sleep.
Every day is a big day, right? Every day is a day that you have to achieve something. And each day in the life of a Muslim is supposed to be better in the next at some point, right? Even if we make mistakes, it’s fine. We don’t want to make the same mistakes the next day, right?
So if you miss Fajr one morning, move past it, make tawbah, feel guilty, but make sure you don’t miss it the next morning. And how can you do that? Practically is by going to bed on time. The second tip is that the Prophet Muhammad (صلى الله عليه وسلم) always encouraged being physically fit, always encouraged being in shape. You know, the Sahaba, the companions used to wrestle.
The Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) used to race with his wife, right? I mean racing is fun but that’s also exercise. You can’t race if you’re not in shape, right? So he used to go out in the desert and race with his wife Aisha (رضي الله تعالى عنها). I mean he used to always preach being physically in shape. And this is part of having an energetic lifestyle, of having energy through your day is being in shape.
If someone is not in shape, it’s kind of like if your car is not in good condition, it’s not going to run as well. So if your body is in better condition, if you take care of yourself, if you exercise, then it’s going to run better throughout the day.
This doesn’t mean that you have to have like a gym membership, right? There are parks in your community probably, even if you don’t go to the park, you can go run around the block a few times, run in your neighborhood and your subdivision. Sometimes you have 15-20 minutes, and that’s a really solid jog.
If you were jogging for 20 minutes a day, maybe three or four times a week, that’ll really get you in the habit. But especially if we eat a good amount of food, you want to make sure that you don’t just lay down or sleep after you eat. You want to make sure that you go and do something active, like walk around.
Maybe go to the park with your family or with your spouse or with your friends. Spend some of those calories. If you don’t do that, you’re going to develop some lethargic behavior and that’s not positive on your energy quality.
So make sure that you’re in shape, make sure that you’re physically fit, inshaAllah. The last part that I want to talk about is the issue that Muslims have is our eating habits, our menus.
A lot of the Muslims came from overseas, from the eastern part of the world, right? We have a lot of indo-pakistani and Arab cultural cuisines. We have a lot of fried food, a lot of food that’s heavy in oil, very heavy and carbohydrates.
So we eat a lot of rice, a lot of bread, and very heavy in meat intake. I mean, I know some families, mashaAllah, that they’re able to eat meat sometimes two or three times a day.
That’s a lot of meat. And meat can actually have a negative effect on your body, in terms of the amount of meat that you take in. It’s very important to eat high quality food. You want to make sure that we eat high quality and the quantity is not that high.
High quality meaning vegetables, fruit, a lot of water. Don’t drink a lot of coke or a lot of soda, that stuff is not really good for you. If you have to have something sweet, there’s fresh juices that you can drink.
A cup of orange juice is actually better for you than a cup of coffee in terms of even keeping you awake as well because of those sugars from the juice as well.
So make sure that you eat healthy. Now on on the quality part, we want to make sure we get quality, but on quantity, the Prophet Muhammad (صلى الله عليه وسلم) also taught us that in a very famous hadith, the capacity of the stomach should be 1/3, 1/3, 1/3, right? 1/3 of food, 1/3 of water, and 1/3 left for air.
The Prophet Muhammad (صلى الله عليه وسلم) actually is giving us the maximum limit. The most you should eat is so that the amount of food you eat. Takes 1/3 your stomach, the amount of water or liquid is 1/3, and the amount of air or space left for air is 1/3.
This isn’t saying that he you have to eat this much, but that this is the most you should eat. Now what you might say to this as well if I only eat this much, then I’m gonna have to eat more frequently, right? and I’m really busy with my schedule, I can’t eat that frequently.
Health studies have shown that eating smaller meals more frequently throughout the day is better for your health and better for your metabolism, thus affecting your energy levels.
So even if you have to eat smaller meals a little more frequently throughout the day. It’s better for you, it’s more healthy for you and it will help take care of your energy levels thus taking care of the disease of laziness, In sha Allah.
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