After eleven months every year this beautiful month arrives - the holy month of Ramadhan. Everyone sails into another zone to cleanse thoughts and words with fasting and prayers.
It takes determination to move from the comfort zone filled with patterns and habits.
Habits make us they say, but here is a chance we get after 11 months to review our habits and leave behind what is not useful or the ones that are harmful.
The beauty of Ramadhan is that the whole society goes through the same process and so it is a collective motivation. Some are of the view that they feel so energized and motivated leading to clarity of mind, which is why they feel it could be the most productive month of the year.
Dr Elva Selhub in her article on Harvard Health Blog, titled ‘Nutritional Psychiatry: Your brain on food,’ says that the brain is working constantly and so it needs fuel. She points out that the type of fuel is important, “This means your brain requires a constant supply of fuel. That "fuel" comes from the foods you eat — and what's in that fuel makes all the difference. Put simply, what you eat directly affects the structure and function of your brain and, ultimately, your mood.”
So the next few days there is an element of intermittent fasting too.
We care for our vehicles and we would want the best fuel for them. We think of its engine performance and longevity. We are quick to think of services. Yet we never think about the fuel we use for our brain.
Dr Selhub points out that, “Since about 95 per cent of serotonin is produced in the gastrointestinal tract, and the gastrointestinal tract is lined with a hundred million nerve cells, or neurons, it makes sense that the inner workings of the digestive system don't just help you digest food, but also guide your emotions.”
Think about it, a pen needs ink, even if you say who writes with a pen these days in the digital world, the fact is even the equipment needed to be charged and they need energy, whether it is solar, wind or electricity.
Even in energy today we have to consider whether we want to use clean energy or fossil fuel. We know their attributes have an impact on environment. And so we can imagine the impact of refined, sweetened and modified food we consume.
Then of course we have to consider what fuel we are using for our mind. What is that we listen to, what do we read and watch. Information Age has come with advantages and disadvantages like everything thing else in the world.
Access to information is everywhere. We don’t have to carry books around it is all on our phones. What we read and watch have great impact on our thinking process. So often it even impacts the personality. An example is the negative impact of video gaming on people’s behaviour.
However video learning has many benefits for students because it has proven to be successful in getting student engagement and the ability to grasp.
There is an element of dualism here - where we realise it could have negative impact but it can also have positive qualities. The choice is ours. That is the beauty of life.
In other words, we just don’t have exams in schools and colleges, life is full of tests and exams. It is full of multiple choices (MCQs). We have to choose the correct answers and to do that we need to continuously learn, from books and experiences of people as well as by contemplating.
In the past, families collected stories to teach the young ones.
People have beautiful personal stories too. How they learned what they learnt.
In life we need to learn to make intelligent choices. This is were the experts ask, “What fuel are we using for the brain?”
It consists of nutritional and intellectual elements.
What company are we keeping? What are we talking about? What are we reading about and listening to?
And after 11 months here is our opportunity to rethink, realign and redesign.
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
