Escape The Meltdown – Islamic strategies for stress relief
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Channel: Navaid Aziz
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Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa Salatu was Salam ala rasulillah Walla early, he was somebody who warmer weather. Aloha, Marlene Emily, Toronto was in there. I mean, a little bit odd to me. So does that come along? on everyone for coming out? In sha Allah, we're going to start our session on Islamic techniques of stress relief. So I want to introduce the topic with First of all, can everyone hear me at the back, raise your hand, if you can hear me? Sort of, Okay. Shall as people get settled down, we can, everybody will be able to hear. Alright, so I'll start with the interesting quote by one of the famous scholars of Islam. If it hasn't ended, you see, we died 456 years after the hijra.
And he wrote a very interesting book on ethics, called law was here. And in this book, he starts by mentioning something very interesting. He says, I reflected on one goal that is common to all human beings, I reflect on one goal that everybody has in common. And what I came up with the one goal that it seems that every human being in their life is trying to achieve this is to escape him, anxiety or stress. And so this was an interesting reflection, from amount of good husband on this the universality of trying to relieve oneself of stress, everybody finds that they're struggling with stress to a certain extent, on a daily basis, you know, and some people may be experiencing too
much stress. So there was a recent study that found that 75% of people report having moderate to very high levels of stress more than they should. And this has a negative impact in so many different ways. But before I get into the negative aspect of stress, we always talk about stress in a negative context. So I want to first ask, Can anyone think of an example where stress is good?
Yes.
So students before their exam, they should feel stressed, so that they're motivated to study right. Okay, what else?
Yes.
Okay, so type of stress to make one try to perfect their acts of worship, to improve their their spirituality. Okay, excellent. So what we're getting at is what is we have to go back to what is stress? So stress is a word that we use for a something that happens in the body. Okay? What is happening, the body has a built in mechanism to help somebody deal with danger, okay, or to deal with a difficult situation. So in a difficult situation, you need to be able to react very quickly, you need to be able to use a lot of physical exertion. So what happens? So in your body, everybody knows you have two kidneys, right? Does that what is the gland that sits on top of the kidneys?
adrenal glands, right. So the adrenal glands, they produce cortisol. And cortisol is involved in our stress response. So what happens is say somebody goes out, they turn the corner, and a car is coming right towards you. And it's about to hit you, all of a sudden, your adrenal glands will pump out that cortisol, and you have that reaction so that your heartbeat goes up, you're you're more aware, your your pupils dilate. So you can see things you can see where the danger is coming from. And your your, your muscles are ready to move, all of a sudden, everything is ready. So you can react to the danger, right? So stress allows a person in a good context that allows a person to deal with
something that's dangerous or to deal with some difficulty or challenge.
So that's how stress can be healthy. So
they created this stress response for us, so that we can use it to accomplish things, you know, so that we can use it to save ourselves in difficult situations. But when is stress a bad thing? Stress is a bad thing, when a person is experiencing too much stress, or they're experiencing chronic stress that goes on for long periods of time. Right? So that's when it starts to have negative effects. What are the negative effects that stress can have when this cortisol is high constantly, what happens is a person's blood pressure is high constantly, and that causes many different diseases. So it increases a person's risk of heart attacks. It increases a person's risk of stroke
increases a person's risk of other diseases in the brain as well. For example, dementia, all these tiny, tiny little blood vessels in your brain. If there's high blood pressure pumping through them constantly. They can break
And so there's a type of dementia called vascular dementia. Even there's there's research correlating stress with cancer as well. So it's very important that a person tries to
find ways to cope with stress in a healthy way. Now often what happens, people go to work, and they find their jobs stressful, there was some statistic about, you know, a huge percentage of Canadians hate their boss, they find their job stressful, or they use their sick days to just avoid going to work.
And it has, over time, it has an impact, not just on our physical health, our mental health as well, depression, anxiety disorder, all of these different things start to come. And so a person has this long, stressful day at work, and then they come home, and they're cranky, they get into a fight with their family. And then they get relationship, dysfunctional relationships, and then it causes family stress, and that's another source of stress. And then all this stress causes them to have all these physical illnesses, and that adds more to their stress. So it becomes a vicious cycle. You know, what is the biggest industry in books right now, it's the self help industry. You know, people are
wanting to read more and more books on how they can escape these problems. People are part of it is they're looking for some source of purpose in life. Because each person says, You know, I just hate my, my job, I find so much stress in my in my workplace, and I don't find any activity, which brings me a sense of fulfillment or meaning. And each time I'm just looking forward to when is the next vacation? And what is the next vacation? And what is the one after that? And each vacation is also stressed, because I have to book flights that I have to plan this and that and they just feel exhausted. I need a vacation from my vacation. Right? How many people have heard something like
that? You've heard you've heard people complain about things like that? Yeah. So this shows you the negative impacts on on stress. So in sha Allah, we're going to talk about what are some of the techniques that we can use to to deal with stress and whatever the Islamic teachings that we have that we have from the pond from the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad system, there's so many beneficial means that we find in the deen on relief of stress and and it starts with one zappi that once one's belief and values inshallah, positive shift innovated to start us off there. Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa Salatu was Salam ala rasulillah, Juan de la wasabi Juan Manuel de My bad. One of
the famous scholars of the past have been taken out of him a whole lot. He has this book called dug out of the knuckle, the knuckle, that reconciling between intellect and Revelation. And the conclusion he eventually comes to in this book is that when you look at reason and Revelation, there shouldn't be any contradiction in them, because they're both from the same source. Now, one of the things that he talks about is this concept of, you know, how do we understand evil from a faith based perspective, that you have a God that is all loving and all merciful and compassionate, yet how does evil actually exist in that sort of world where it's such a God is present? Now, one of the
things that he mentions is a logical approach to this question. He says that if you were to look at any given scenario, there's five possibilities in them, either is absolute good, or it is absolute evil, or good and evil are equal in it, or the good is greater than the equal than the evil or the evil is greater than the good. He says, These are the five logical possibilities. Then he talks about the theological possibilities, meaning based upon Araki the based upon what we believe how many of them are theologically possible out of these five, and he comes to a conclusion that only two of them are possible that Allah subhana wa Taala creates that which is absolute good, or he
creates that which the good is greater than the evil and all the other three are not theologically possible. Obviously, the perspective that he comes from, is not only from the perspective of this life, but also from the perspective of the Hereafter, any injustice that one gets away with in this life, the obviously will not get away with in the next and that is why when you take things holistically, then this approach makes sense. Whereas if you restrict it purely to the life of this world, then it may not make sense. With that having been said one of the benefits that we derive from Al Qaeda in Qatar, one of the pillars of EMA and one of the pillars of faith to believe in
Divine destiny is to understand that everything that Allah subhanho wa Taala decrees is in our best interests. And this is purely based upon one simple Hadith of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam where he says, Allahu Allah hammer ba ba de man had he be one of the world's messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he says that Allah is more compassionate, more loving, more caring towards his slave than a mother is towards her child. And any child that has experienced the love of their mother will know what that means to have a look.
That is more loving than that than anything that happens in your life you will understand, at the end of the day, Allah subhanho wa Taala will desire and will want what is best for you. Number two related to this point is a verse in the Quran where Allah subhana wa tada says, law you can leave for law who enough son in law was Aha, that Allah subhanho wa Taala does not burden a soul more than it can bear. Now there's two things to look at number one, what Allah subhana wa tada is telling us, and number one, number two, the faith that we actually have in this verse. So we believe that all the time that Allah told this to us, it's mentioned at the end of Soto Baccarat, but the faith and
the confidence that we have in ourselves, that is a different matter altogether. And I think this is where a lot of the problem takes place. Whereas Allah subhanho wa Taala has a lot more faith in us than we do in ourselves. Because when the test of time comes when a calamity happens, when something stressful happens, we tend to lose confidence in ourselves, oh, I cannot handle this right now. It is too much for me. But if you take it back to your faith and understand that Allah I know it's Allah would not burden you with something more than you can bear that that's a starting point to you progressing and understanding that you know what, I can actually navigate my way out of this number
three related Takada. This is one of the you know the the beautiful aspects of the Quran is that when you look at the story of use of Allah, He said, The story of Joseph in the Quran, Allah subhanho wa Taala tells us at the beginning of this sounds, it tells us in the sutra, that indeed in the story of Joseph and his brothers are Signs for people to reflect upon, right. And when you reflect upon this story, you look at how the story starts off. This is a young boy, his brothers are jealous against him, they plots to kill him, one of the brothers decides to have mercy upon them and says, You know what, let us throw him into a well instead, he gets thrown into a well gets picked up
is thrown into bondage, through bondage. He's taken to a rich man's house, whose wife tries to seduce him, she fails at that. And thus he gets accused of something evil and gets thrown into prison. In prison, he gets placed with two men who completely forget about his calamity. They're supposed to speak to the king about his calamity, they completely forget about his calamity, and the life gets tougher and tougher and tougher. But if you look at how this story ends off at the end, there's usually Salaam not get vindicated is Yusuf Ali salam, you will not come out on top. Not only is he reconnected with his family, he's reconnected with his younger brother and his father, he
becomes a minister of the land that he's a part of, and he has this happy ending. Whereas if you were to try to presume what that happy ending would look like at the beginning of the story, you wouldn't be able to you'd be like how does this story and it must be miserable, but through our belief in God and reflecting upon the stories in the Quran. We also learn that through our faith in God is to submit that whatever ending Allah subhanaw taala plans for us, as long as we are conscious of Allah and are trying our best and putting our best foot forward, then the best result will happen the best possible result will happen. The fourth and last thing that I'll share about the color of
Allah subhana wa tada is that other ties in directly to the names and attributes of Allah subhanho wa Taala mean that this is something that you can't really separate the two from. So now when you talk about the names and attributes of Allah subhana wa tada we know the names of Allah and we do we know the name or Rahim and man, so the loving, the most compassionate, the source of all of mercy. Why is it important that a Muslim be cognizant of all of these names and attributes of Allah subhanaw taala in times of calamity? Well, these are meant to be sources of hope and inspiration. Because in moments of darkness, we're all looking for light, right? We're all looking for light,
that light is stemming from Allah subhanho wa Taala In this scenario, and that is why it is important that Muslims regularly reflect upon the names of Allah subhana wa Tada. So when you understand that Allah subhanaw taala is the source of all mercy, then everything that happens in your life is a manifestation of that mercy. When you understand that Allah is the source of love, then you understand that everything that happens in life is a manifestation of that love. Yes, sometimes mercy will look tough sometimes, you know, love will look tough. It's like the doctor that has to amputate someone's hand to save their life. It is like the mother that has to, you know,
reprimand their child in order for them to learn a valuable lesson. Sometimes it comes in the format of of a tough love and a tough mercy. But the end result is one that is pure and one that is good. So those are just some of the points I wanted to talk about. And inshallah Dr. Nasir now will be talking about the concept of sugar and how it ties in to stress maintenance.
So, shifting COVID outline for us the importance of
One's belief and how one deals with stress. Right? If you have strong Eman and other if you believe that Allah has planned things in your life, then when something happens that is different from what you intended, it doesn't stress you out, it doesn't worry you so much You do your effort, and you leave the results to our last panel $1 and that connects with this next point, which is having a positive outlook and having sugar. Always being grateful to Allah subhana wa Tada. The Prophet Mohammed says, Sam said, I did Ben dmraid book made the situation of the one with true Eman is amazing. For in nomina hula hoop high, because his situation is always good. When he said that he
had an 11 moment. And it's only that's only the case for somebody who perfects their emac. Well, what are the profits or some say he said, if something bad happens to that person, he shows Subbu he has patience and perseverance. And that brings him closer to Allah subhanho wa Taala. And if something good happens, he has gratitude towards the last panel of data and that brings him closer to Allah subhanaw taala. So no matter what's happening in your life, because everyone's going to go through difficult periods in the in his or her life. We're all going to go through types of stress, but it's how we react to it. And it's how we perceive the stress. It begins with the mind. How do
you look at things? Do you look at things with optimism, and that's what the prophet says I'm said he said, verily, I love optimism. He said, I love having a positive outlook on things. And you see this in so many different examples in the life of the Prophet Muhammad said I sent him to have a positive outlook. Don't focus on the negative, focus on the positive. Don't focus on complaining. Ask yourself how many times when I come home from work, do I start complaining?
If you complain, if you focus on complaining, what happens is you're bringing all that negative feelings from your workplace, or you're bringing them into your home.
And so instead of that focus on the positive focus on what were all the things to be grateful to a list of data for. And this is something that a lot of researchers have actually talked about. So you may find nowadays people even talk about gratitude journals. Has anyone heard of gratitude journals?
Maybe a few people. Yeah. So this actually something that people are talking about, because there's been a lot of psychologists have recently started talking about the importance of gratitude. There was a study that was recently done in the University of California, in Berkeley, where they, they looked at people, their reactions to stress. And what happened was they told some people to make a list of all the things that they're thankful for. And other people they didn't make such a list and then they they asked them how what happened to your mood, you know, and they asked them about so many different things. They did a very comprehensive study. And what they found was that people who
regularly practice gratitude, thinking about things and being grateful for them. They have lower levels of anxiety, lower levels of depression. teenagers who practice gratitude have a less chance of starting smoking, they're more likely to get an at school. So many things start to start to change. When a person practices gratitude as Allah, we find that in the last panel darlin mentions the profits the NBA as being the most grateful to Allah subhanho wa Taala everyone else talks about the profits. How often does Allah subhanaw taala say, in who can rather than shakoora right or almost pantalla mentions that prophets make dua that Allah make them more thankful Rubio's Irani and
escort an aromatic my lord enabled me to be more grateful for your blessings and bounties. Which prophet made that?
So a man Allah, his Sunnah, right? Excellent. So we see this and the Prophet Mohammed sorry, send them as well. He taught us to make the DA Allahu Allah Vika was Shu Krieger was nearby detec, right? Oh, Allah enabled me, helped me to fulfill the remembrance of you, and to be grateful to you and to worship you in the most perfect of manners, and all of these things. Now, psychology research shows us the importance of spirituality. There's a psychologist by the name of Robert Emmons, and he wrote about the topic of spiritual intelligence. Has anyone heard of spiritual intelligence?
Alright, so spiritual intelligence, many of you will have heard of the IQ, right? Everyone's heard the term the IQ, right intelligent quotient. After that, research on the intelligent quotient people started to say, Well, wait a minute, there's many types of intelligence. You know, it's not just mathematical intelligence or abstract reasoning or spatial reasoning. There's other types of intelligence. So they talked about social intelligence. How well can you notice how an
other person's feeling and respond well to them. Some people have zero social intelligence, right? or emotional intelligence, or spiritual intelligence. He talked about spiritual intelligence. And he said, it's about how you're able to derive meaning from your experience, how you're able to deal with bad events that happened to you and your life, how you're able to cope with that. And spirituality has a big role to play. If you believe life has a meaning, if you believe life has a purpose, why is that the case somebody would know spirituality and life. If they view life as purely materialistic that there's nothing that exists except for particles, right? Except for matter. And
this life is all that I have right as the font mensen mentioned how the Polish said in here a lot higher tuna dunya Nemo Tijuana here, well, now you have to nail it down. But this is this life is all that we have is just time that's going to destroy us. Right? If you have that perspective, then anything that happens to you in life has no ultimate meaning behind it, right? It's just random particles colliding with one another for no purpose. You get into a car accident. Well, tough luck. That's just what happens right? There's no reason why there's no wisdom behind it. There is no ultimate benefit that's going to happen to it is just that you were you got the short end of the
stick in the grand scheme of the universe. You just Sorry, buddy. You just lucked up. You didn't get it you just were unlucky. You just random chance happen to give you something bad and there's no ultimate purpose behind this life. So that gives people this this feeling of existential angst, which means that you just feel like okay, there's no purpose behind my life. What's the point of it all? If all I'm going to go through in life is just suffering and suffering and suffering. And every time I seek pleasure in life, it's just temporary. Where does it all lead to? And that's where this topic of spiritual intelligence comes up. Because people need to find a source of meaning in life.
And the pond tells us
Allah be decree law, he taught my guru, verily it is with the remembrance of God with connecting oneself to one's creator that hearts find true contentment, a man who will not play Rahim Allah He mentioned in his work wherever they say it, he says no, he says you should know Aaron and nothing will be held at them and welfare layer sudarshana doctor illogical law has. there's a there's a void in the heart. There's a hole in the heart. Nothing can fill except the remembrance of Allah Spano Madonna. So we as human beings, as Muslims, we believe that we had been created with the purpose of coming closer to Allah subhanaw taala by doing good deeds, by doing acts of worship by loving Allah,
and thanking Allah for his blessings. And this gives us a perspective on life, which allows us to see life as a spiritual journey towards Allah subhana wa Tada. Every day in our life is about becoming a better person, a better worshipper of a better father, a better son, a better brother, a better neighbor. Every day in our life is about this constant process of improving oneself as as a nation mentioned, Manta Salwa, your man who for whom was born, if two consecutive days in your life are the same, if two if one if you tomorrow is the exact same day as today, and you haven't changed at all, then you've cheated yourself. You've lost out on something very important. So we see this
concept of sugar of having a positive outlook in life as very important for the believer in coming closer to Allah subhana wa Tada. So one of the things that we can do practical thing you could do it today on your way home, is to just think Allah, data for 10 things that you're grateful for. And remember that unless Allah says in the morning when you are doing aramith, Allah He letters to her. If you try to count the favors of Allah subhanaw taala, you would never be able to. The Prophet Muhammad SAW Sam told us a story about a man from one of the previous nations he gave us the example of a man worshipping Allah subhanaw taala. Constantly, for hundreds of years on an island in the
middle of the sea with no distractions. And on the Day of Judgment, this person will be resurrected, Mandy will be set and said to him, enter into gender by the mercy of Allah, tada and the person will say, yup, there are many, Oh Allah, I want to enter because of my actions. Look how much worship I did 700 years of worship, non stop, I must have a very high status. So Allah, Allah will tell the angels measure his worship in one scale. And then in the other side of the scale place one thing, the gift of eyesight and it will be found that the gift of eyesight is heavier than 700 years of worship.
And then almost print I will say based on this
If it's going to be based on your actions, then you haven't been grateful enough. And then the surgeon will say, yeah, Rob,
oh my lord by your mercy, activator gentlemen. So having this feeling of of surrendering to the mercy of Allah spawn, tada, it gives a person and being grateful for all the blessings of Allah, tada, it gives a person a sense of ease, it removes a burden from a person, it gives that person that spiritual strength to not feel weighed down by all of life's stresses. Because they're always be stressed, there are less parent as well after the hurricane in Santa Fe recovered, right, we have created the human being in a state of constant struggle and hardship. So there always be outside stress. But that doesn't have to mean that I can't have inner peace, there may be outside stress.
But if my heart is connected with a less panada, and always focused on my goal in life, of constantly improving myself, I can have inner peace, even in a setting of outside stress.
One of the one of the books that I benefited from on this topic is called learned optimism and how you basically learn to be more optimistic. And one of the activities that Dr. Nasir mentioned, was about, you know, every day trying to come up with 10 things that you're grateful for. The author actually just says, aim for three, that if you can get three every single day, that's like a big achievement. And I'll make it even simpler, that those periods of time where you're exceptionally stressed out in for that period of time, every night before you go to bed, try to find three things that are exclusive to you that you're grateful for. Now, a lot of times when we tell people Hey,
what are you grateful for? Oh, I'm grateful for life. I'm grateful for eyesight, I'm grateful for for food. And it's all these generic things, that there's no real reflection upon in order for this activity to be successful. It has to be something that is specific to you something that you feel that Allah subhanaw taala has blessed you with something that you feel that Allah has chosen you for. And that is what you're thanking Allah subhanho wa Taala for, and that is how this activity actually becomes, you know, successful in its effort and making you more optimistic. The second thing I will talk about in terms of perspective, I can't emphasize this enough, having the correct
perspective on things is of the utmost importance. And prospective looks like many takes many manifestations, the first perspective to look at is can things actually be worse. And you will realize that in life, things can always be worse, things can always be worse. So that is something to be grateful that if you're going through a calamity, you're going through hardship, be grateful that your calamity is not greater. Number two, is there someone that is going through a greater calamity than you are going through? Right? So for example, you failed an exam, you didn't get into the university you want to go into you didn't get the job you want to get into you got divorced,
these are regular struggles that people will go through. But can you imagine what it's like living in a third world country where you don't have access to electricity, you don't have access to clean water at any given moment, you could be attacked by a savage animal. So they're even that sense of security, isn't there? Can you imagine what that is like? Or imagine if you were in a war torn country, where missiles and bombs are being dropped upon you, where you're literally afraid of what is going to happen in the next few seconds. Things could always be worse for your own for your own perspective. And then when you see that there are others out there. This is why the Prophet
sallallahu alayhi wa sallam taught us to send him to the landlady Asana, that Praise be to Allah that saved us from the calamities that others are going through, not to look down upon them. But a thank Allah subhanaw taala to be grateful that things can always be worse. Number three, is that the calamities that we go through, are actually opportunities to earn reward. Right, they probably sell a lot while you sell them tells us that the son and daughter of Adam are not pricked by a thorn, except that some of their sins are forgiven, mean that every calamity that you go through, Your sins are being forgiven. And if you find it in yourself to be patient, and by patient, not falling into
anything sinful during that time, don't be obscene, don't curse, don't break anything. No, try not to abuse anyone during that time. If your man if you're able to do that, not only are your sins forgiven, but you're actually increased in reward, you're actually increasing no more. So can you imagine every time a calamity strikes you being you know freed of sin, you're being purified of sin, and your awards are being increased? That is why perspective is so important. Now what I actually wanted to focus on is the concept of salon and how important salon is as a stress reliever. We see this in the Hadith of the Prophet sallallahu it was set up when he's telling me a lot about the
Allahu anhu to give the man he says Arianna Baba Yaga Allah they give the answer that we may find comfort. Now the objective behind Salah is actually defined comfort and to rejuvenate spiritually. And that is why when an individual you know works really, really hard, they need a time to be
down, they needed a time where they're there they're left from those things that are causing them stress. And that is why when you're insular, you're meant to purely engage alone with Allah subhanho wa Taala This is your time to converse with Allah subhana wa Tada, this is your time to tell Allah subhanaw taala about your problems, this is your time to reflect on what you're reciting upon to put things into perspective, that yes, my my worldly life might be difficult, but as long as they have something to look forward to in the Hereafter, then inshallah it was all worth it at the end, it was all worth it at the end. So now what are some of the ways that we can actually gain horseshoe in
Scylla, outside of the salon itself, make sure that as you're approaching the salon, you have the intention to spiritually engage with salon, I can't emphasize this enough, you will only get from your salon, that what you intend from it. So those individuals that intend from their seller to fulfill an obligation, they would have fulfilled their obligation, but they're not going to spiritually engage with it. But those that come into the intention that I want to spiritually engage and spiritually recharge, then that is what they will get from it. Number two, is being able to reflect on the actions and statements of the Salah. So when you start the salon, you start off by
saying Allahu Akbar, reminding yourself that there's nothing more important in your life than Allah subhana wa tada and there's nothing greater in existence other than Allah subhanho wa Taala meaning that your problems will become small in the Presence of Allah subhanho wa Taala when you're going down into Roku, or you're going down into sajida, these are opportunities where your sins are being forgiven. And these are opportunities where you're closest to Allah subhana wa tada reflecting on those statements, when you say Subhana, Allah, Allah, Allah Subhana, Allah, Allah Glorified is my Lord, the great Glorified is my Lord, the Most Hi, this is you reminding yourself that every
imperfection that you have in our that we have in ourselves as human beings, Allah subhanho wa Taala is free from and the one that is free from imperfection, can take care of all of my imperfections, can take away from you know, all the anxiety and all the stress that I have. That is why using solar as a stress reliever is a huge tool. This is why Allah subhanho wa Taala tells us was there you know, the sebrae was solar, that seek help in your moments of difficulty, through patience, and through your Salah. Now what usually ends up happening as human beings, we're like, in order to get rid of our stress, let's do something fun, right. And that is why people they'll go to like all
sorts of things, recreational drugs, go to alcohol would have promiscuity, anything to take away their problems. But what happens, those are all temporary fixes, right? As soon as the enjoyment is over, you actually find that the stress is multiplied, the stress actually becomes much, much greater. Why is when you start taking small steps towards solving your problem. And the first step in including Allah subhanho wa Taala into your problem and telling a lot about your problem. And just getting it off your chest, you'll notice that you're already making progress, that you're already solving the problem that you're facing, because there is no problem that is too big for
Allah subhanaw taala to solve. Allah created everything and he sustains everything. And unless I know what the other would take care of your problem, as well. The third element of for sure, and this is probably the most difficult one is that before you actually approach the seller, making sure you get rid of all your distractions. Like if you reflect on why did the Messenger of Allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam tell us that when the food is being served and the time for prayer comes, eat before you go and pray, eat before you go and pray, because an individual that doesn't do that, they're going to be distracted in the Salah. So we can make clear upon this, we can make a
logical deduction based upon this, those things that are going to distract you in the salon trying to you know, do to eliminate them or eradicate them or, or you know, just put them aside to the best of your ability need to go to the bathroom, go to the bathroom, then go and pray. You have an important email, you need to respond to respond to that email, then come to salah and shut off your phone while you're in Salah. Right. So anything you need to get done, make sure you're doing that. And the fourth and last thing I would mention, is this the approach in terms of the visualization that the predecessors used to have, right when you look at a mammal doesn't do that Milan talks
about what he did, in terms of how the predecessors used to approach their salon. So they would imagine as if gender was in front of them and Johanna was behind them, they would imagine that the angel of death was beside them, they would imagine that the angels are writing down good deeds and bad deeds are there. So all of this visualization that takes place before Salah it will completely completely change what you get out of your Salah. But in order to do this, you're going to need to time right an individual that only takes out two minutes.
Praise Allah obviously won't have the time to do this visualization won't have the time to spiritually engage, you need to make sure that you are loading a solid 10 minutes. And imagine like 10 minutes in the past was nothing. This is like the seller of the lazy people. In this day and age, if you're going to walk 10 minutes per seller, I will consider that a huge achievement that makes sure that in this summer, you're just purely engaged with it. And you visualize what you're trying to achieve and what you're trying to be saved from. And what ends up happening as a result of this is that everything that you're stressed about before, you're no longer stressed about, because
you're not focused on that you're focused on something more important. And you're focused on taking practical steps and solving those problems. Because part of your mental well being part of your physical well being part of your emotional well being is your spiritual well being. And a person that is spiritually healthy, will be able to get healthy in other ways. But an individual that is spiritually diseased, no matter how healthy physically, emotionally, psychologically, they get, there's always going to be a void that needs to be filled through spirituality. And Dr. Nasir, he has a very, very interesting study on Salah that he's going to share with us in shaba. Salah is such
an interesting,
profound thing that we have as Muslims. So I was talking earlier about the psychological research that's being done on on the topic of stress. And one of the areas that people are starting to look into more is the topic of the meditation, basically taking some time to yourself, and trying to remove worries from your mind. And there's been different studies on it, but one researcher would His name is Dr. Andrew new Newberg. He's a researcher, he's a medical doctor, he is a researcher in the United States, he was very interested to look at a practice that has already been going on continuously for 1400 years in the Muslim community, which is the practice of salah and he wanted to
know what is the effect of Salah on a person's emotions, on their anxiety on their stress. So he did a very interesting study. He, he he wanted what he did was he had a person come a Muslim to perform Salah performed the prayer. And first he told him, you know, he told him just do it in the regular way that most people do it right, which is what Hey, rushing through. And so the person performed the Salah, and he he did a brain scan, okay? He scanned his brain and he said I don't see much difference between Then he told him to do the the salah and be
the dedicated way with full kosher with reflection on all the verses of Surah Fatiha that he's reciting. And he did another brain scan. So he did three brain scans. One when he is just, you know not doing anything. One when he is praying salon I rushed away. And the third one, when he is praying, sola with for sure. Right when he is praying, performing his prayers, and with a focused contemplate of, you know, a tentative state that he came in. And the brother who did the study, he said, Okay, tell me what did you see in my brain? You know, show me this. What do you notice? So you put up the the scans there. And he said that the first scan, this is how normal brain activity is,
you know, when there's a lot of anxiety or stress about anything going on, you know. And then this next scan is the scan of your brain when you're performing saliva in a rushed way. And there's not really any difference between that and everyday activity. It doesn't have any effect. It's not doing he said it's not doing anything for you. It's not helping you in any way. If you're just in terms of reducing stress. Then he pulled up the third scan. He said, Look, this is very interesting. He said, I noticed that the third time you prayed you did something different. And I noticed that these changes happen. What happened activity in the frontal lobes of the brain, it decreased activity in
the deep structures in the middle of the brain, the basal ganglia increased, particularly in a specific structure, the anti the anterior cingulate gyrus, what does that mean?
How do we understand what's happening? He explained, the frontal lobe of the brain is associated with your control over different things. Okay? So what it means is that when you're stressed out activity in that part of the brain increases, because you're more anxious about trying to control different things, trying to do more things. Okay, so your anxiety levels increase when there's increased activity in the frontal lobes.
Now that decreases after you perform solo with ashore and instead your act activity increases in a part of the brain that's associated with reading
Word with relaxation with relief of stress. And he said what that shows us? He said he then he said to him, explain to me what were those verses that you were reciting in your Salah that you were reflecting on. And so he explained what sort of Fatiha is. And he said, it sounds to me like sort of Fatiha. This opening chapter of the pond is about letting go of of your anxiety and giving all recognizing that Allah is Rob bull and me in control of everything. He can do what he can to Stein, when we say that install, what does it mean, you alone? Do we worship you alone? From you alone? Do we seek help? recognizing that Allah, Allah is in control? So this type of surrender and submission,
right, that's what Islam means submission and surrender to allow us to honor this is associated with a feeling of relief of stress and removal of anxiety. And I actually found this so amazing this study that I contacted Dr. Newberg and the researcher and he said, yes, you know, this is the study that I did. And this is the results that I found and feel free to share these results and he published it in 2015. Journal of physiology, so this is interesting the impact of Uppsala. And in addition to that, we find the crow law in general, if we make ourselves accustomed to remembering Allah subhanho wa Taala or focusing on Thank you almost pantalla focusing on saying Subhana Allah,
Al hamdu, lillah Allahu Akbar, not just saying it with our tongues, but also reflecting on it. This is a means of stress relief, right? This is it's this same type of effect. And also when the Prophet Muhammad says I mentioned Vicar Allah. The Prophet Muhammad says them mentioned something interesting. The profits are mentioned what makes them fall in fee baiting member Utila yet Luna kita below at the data sooner who Banham inland as Allah tala hermosa kena Vasya Toma Rama for half a tamale. melodica wacka, Houma la houfy men are in the this is interesting, the profitsystem said whenever people gathered together to study the Quran recite its verses in one of the houses from the
houses of Allah they gathered and then massage it to connect themselves with a lesser hunter that read and reflect on the Quran. four things happen. And one of those four things that Prophet Mohammed says some said and so that the LA he was seeking peace and tranquility descends upon them. So Allah subhanaw taala, the prophet Mohammed says them is telling us, they're one of the results of reflecting on the pond is going to be stress relief, one of the results of connecting oneself with the pond is going to be that feeling of stress relief. And by the way, also, we get the benefit from that idea that if one goes to the to the monster one connects with one's community, there's an added
benefit because when you're studying on your own or you're trying to do different things on your own, it doesn't have as much impact is when you surround yourself with other people who have the same goal who are also focused on you know,
this same spiritual spiritual journey towards Allah Subhanallah Dada reflecting on the message of the porn together studying it in a circle like this. So we pray in Charlotte Allah that this here this gathering is a means also of us having some stress relief, you know, having some increased emotion and feeling more connected with a less current data, as we are sitting here in in the company of the angels reflecting on the verses of the pond how many people are feeling their stress has gone down since they've been sitting here?
That's great. Okay, so that's one of the things that's that's interesting about the topic of solar and the topic of Nikola now when you go to your family doctor and he asked what about what can I do for stress? There's two things that everyone will always every doctor will always recommend because these are the ones that people have researched for years and years and years. And we have so much evidence does anyone know what those two things are?
Yes,
sleep Okay good. What's the other one? Anyone? workout extra excellent sleep and exercise sleep and exercise. Now what what do we say about sleep and exercise from an Islamic perspective? How important are these topics Subhanallah we find that the Prophet Muhammad says some emphasize right with the Prophet system said in many bed Anika Alec Huck, verily your body has a right over you, or your body has a right over you part of of being a good woman. And if you're being a good believer is to take care of one's own body to take care of one's own physical health. The profits are some said that two blessings that people often take for granted and don't take advantage of our free time and
good health. So we're supposed to preserve our health so hard to infer All right, free time and good health and free time. So on the topic of sleep,
It's very interesting. So, you know, it's, it's recommended, what's the recommended amount of sleep a person should get?
Eight hours, seven hours a day. Yeah, so it actually it varies a little bit based on age. But in general, the number of 78 hours is good number to remember 78 hours is a good number to remember. And what happens is when you don't get that sleep, your your body gets sleep deprived, the next night, it's going to want sleep even more, it's going to build up what they call a sleep debt, you're going to have a need, you're going to need even more sleep and sleep each night that you cut away from your sleep, you're going to need more and more sleep to recover from that.
And one of the things about sleep that's very interesting, apart from monetarism, it's reported from hid the son of the profits are some is that he wouldn't stay up late after salata Russia, he wouldn't stay up late after Sardar acia he appraisers and he would go to sleep early, so that he would be able to wake up for fudger and in the last third of the night to perform extra solar. And so this is one of the centers we need to revive, right the sun nap going to bed on time setting a bedtime for ourselves, not going to bed with our iPhones and saying Okay, now check all my messages and emails and everything. Because even though just that light from the screen, it triggers your
brain, your triggers the pineal gland to make you feel like oh, it's daytime, I should be I should be awake, I should be doing more work and your body is not going to feel sleepy that way. So this is one of the other things we need to improve on our sleep also, on the topic of exercise, exercise is so important we find many hudy from the Prophet Muhammad says on the importance of exercise, first of all, the profitsystem himself when we read the description of how he salaria salaam was, it's mentioned shamone in the be of humanitarian movie, The Prophet Muhammad SAW said he had broad shoulders, and he had a flat abdomen, he had a flat belly. Now if we stand up today, how many of us
have a flat belly right there. That was the profit systems characteristic. He didn't eat extra the profits or some ate only what was enough to keep his backup straight and he was physically strong. He was physically quite healthy. The Sahaba they narrated that when the profitsystem would walk, he would walk at a fast pace as though he were descending. You know, if you're walking down a hill, you'll you'll be going a little bit faster. And this habit they noted that's how the profitsystem would walk his normal pace. hora de la Juan said that was the normal pace of the profitsystem. We used to find it difficult to keep up with him. But it shows you he's physically fit. You know, if
you go outside, you try power walking. After a few minutes your your calf muscles will be killing you. And that was something that this how they found like just keeping up with the Profit System was like power walking, right? That's how the the profit systems physical fitness. Also the hadith of eyeshadow Dullahan her that she said that I raised the Prophet Mohammed Sarason and the first time who won.
She said then, a few years later, after I had gained some weight, the prophet system challenging again to raise and who won, then the Prophet Muhammad says, and he said, The Prophet says I've said this time is for that time, he's also having humor with his spouse. Right? And it shows us that the Prophet system engaged in these kinds of physical activities, you know, Ray saying,
take it taking care of one's physical health. Now, if I asked in the past week, how many people in this room did some form of exercise and don't say oh, I walk around in the house and I work that's extra. So that doesn't count. How many people did actually went and did some accident. Okay, Marsha, that's good. How many people are involved in some type of sport?
Good. That's an excellent way of actually doing something you enjoy. How many people go to the gym?
Few people. Okay, how many people do a fitness workout at home?
Why should I love that's great. So this is something we have to make a regular habit, you know, the doctor is talking about if you do 30 minutes just on a daily basis, you know, it can be simple 30 minutes. And it significantly reduces your risk of depression, anxiety, heart attack, stroke, all sorts of illnesses, just making regular exercise a part of your daily activity. So sleep and exercise These are two very important points that we find from the Sunnah of the Prophet Mohammed tourism and they're great methods of stress relief.
Okay, so I have a trivia question for you guys. And that trivia question is from the Hadith that he mentioned that Abu huraira the Allahu anhu narrated that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam when he used to walk we used to struggle in keeping up with him. What is the
evidence in this Hadith, that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was indeed old in age. What is the evidence that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was old in age?
What about what era
sent? Saba, wherever the Allahu anhu, he accepted Islam almond flavor in the expedition of klaver, which was the seventh or the eighth year of the hlr. And the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam died approximately four to five years after that. So this shows that deposit shalom was well into his late 50s, possibly early 60s, whenever whatever the Allahu anhu is narrating this hadith that even at that old age, the Prophet sallallahu, alayhi wasallam, is physically strong. Now one thing that I'll mention about working out that works out really well is making sure that you're doing something while you're working out to make the time pass by. So particularly if you're doing
cardiovascular activity, listening to an E book will, you know, make the time pass by much, much more quickly. For those of us that like to follow sports, if you you know, follow your sports news at that time, and you're watching the TSN, or ESPN or whatever it is that you want your sports highlights, at that time will make the time pass by very quickly. And that way you kill two birds with one stone, not only are you getting your exercise done, but you're doing something that you enjoy as well will make you want to keep coming back. And that is the most important thing with physical activity. It has to be something that you enjoy, and can't be something that's too
burdensome as something that is burdensome. If it becomes burdensome, you're not going to end up doing it, you're not going to end up doing it. Which leads me to my second point is that what happens to people when they become angry, you know, a lot of times you see a movie scene, you'd see a TV show, when people get angry, oh, let's punch a wall or Let's beat someone up. There's this element of releasing stress and anger physically. Now, that is what happens through exercise. So your body will want to release that stress physically, you'll want to hit something you want to have that release. And that is what exercise is doing. So if you get into like cardio kickboxing, you get
into those, you know, sports, cardio based sports, that is actually very, very good for that. Now, what I want to conclude my portion with before we go into our conclusion, is talking about the role of community and brotherhood in dealing with stress the role of community and brotherhood in dealing with stress. So what we're going to start off with is looking at the Prophet salallahu alaihe salam, after the year, in the year of five, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam has this beautiful draw that he makes where he says something very profound, where he says, for Islam, you couldn't because Audubon Alia for now Oh, Bonnie, there is long as you're not angry with me. Oh, Allah subhanho wa
Taala then everything else becomes irrelevant. And in this drama, he's talking about all the things that he's afraid of, and worried about. So this shows us that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam used as a stress relief, his communication with Allah subhana wa Tada. Now did the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam show us examples of stress relief through other human interaction? And yes, he did. When you look at the Treaty of Abia, you see that in the Treaty of Arabia when the when the Muslims had to compromise on certain things, the Muslims were very, very upset that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam knew that there was a greater vision behind it. So when he told them that
you know what, sacrifice your animals Take off your arms, and inshallah we know we're going to go back and you know, the our reward is written for us. The Companions didn't listen to him. So he goes back to Santa Marta de la Mancha, who was his wife and this is going to get into the to another aspect in Sharla was the the cuddle
hormone called oxytocin. oxytocin. That's it the cuddle hormone. So it goes back to him Santa Marta de la Mancha. And he says, Look, this is what's happening. And I don't know what to do. So here the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is seeking advice and counsel from his wife or their love on her. And she tells him that look, just lead by example. Have you ever found these people not to follow your example? And he says always, so she says, lead by example, and you will see them follow you. So here are the seven goals and he goes and shaves his head sacrifices animal and takes off his or her arm, and he notices that there's a habit of the law, one home and the following him. So three
valuable lessons over here that number one, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam didn't have a problem sharing his stress and his frustration with his spouse. Number two, is that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was very open and welcoming to the advice that he received, which is a huge problem for men in particular, number one, we don't like to talk about our problems. Number two, we don't like to receive advice. If these two things happen simultaneously. It's like you know, an explosion happening in our head. But the third thing that ties into this and this is what you know Dr. Oz and I were watching a video before the the Holocaust on the cuddalore
hormone oxytocin is a hormone that the body releases when a husband and wife spends time together are you spending actually just good social time with people? oxytocin is released. And I was reflecting on the verse what Allah subhanaw taala says, Well Jana Bina como de todos cuando La Hoya Jana Bina kumada. Tamara, that so that you may find tranquility with your spouse, and he has made between you love and mercy. So this tranquility that Allah subhanaw taala is talking about is very possible is the oxytocin, that when we are with our spouses when we're having good social interaction, the body produces this hormone known as oxytocin, which is a form of stress relief,
meaning that your body will no longer feel that stress. Which brings us to the third component of what I wanted to address, the importance of being a part of a community, right? Coming to the masjid on a regular basis. If you can't make it for five sellers. Try to come for one seller, right? That's what you should be aiming for. This whole mentality of, you know what, I'm only going to come to the masjid for Juma, you fulfill the basic obligation that is great, but in terms of actually being a part of a community and not going to be a part of a real community if you're just coming for Juma. Right. So try to be part of a particular mustard on a regular basis, people that you interact with
regularly, how are you doing? How is your day going? What's happening in your life, these regular discussions are of the utmost importance people that you can talk about your problems with, and inshallah you know, you don't have a problem doing that. The fourth thing related to that is the Hadith of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, Allah who found the Abrahim icon and Abdullah II, that Allah is in the aid of their servant, as long as the servant is in the aid of their brother. And what this ties into is that if you see someone going through a difficult time, and you help them out, this is your way of earning the help of Allah subhanho wa Taala. Either Allah will directly
help you or he will send someone to help you. This has been proven in experience time and time again, that anytime we go out of our way to help people, Allah sends ease and comfort our way. And when you're a part of a community, when you engage socially with people, you get to see what their problems are, at the very least give them advice. If you can do more than that, then that is great as well. And this is your way of helping yourself when you're a part of a community. Now Dr. Nasir is going to talk about the last point which is about controlling your anger, and then we'll open up the floor for q&a inshallah.
So the final point that we want to focus on for stress relief, the Islamic techniques of stress relief and hunger, we've given so many points here inshallah, there's a lot of stuff that we can go home with and, and benefit. The final point is once a clock, once a cloud is actually related to stress relief, one's character, you know, how one deals with things on a daily basis? Do we get into arguments? Do we get into conflicts? Are we rude and aggressive with other people? Do we backbite? Do we gossip, all? And do we lose our temper and get angry, all of these negative interpersonal relationships, they actually contribute to stress. So being a unpleasant person, being somebody who
gets mad easily gets gets angry with others is rude to other people that actually can create more stress per person and make the more you are unpleasant with others, the more you'll feel miserable. So Pamela, so we find the profit center, Sam was once approached by his met by a person. And he said, Yeah, I'd also love give me advice. Give me something and so Paula, such a generic statement, you know, somebody came to me advice, you say, Okay, brother, what do you need? Right? Like you'd be more specific. But he just said, give me advice. And what was the one thing that the Prophet system gave to him, which is it shows us this is the general advice everyone can benefit from the Prophet
system said, What do you say a lot of that, don't get angry. The prophets. The man said to me, something more than this. He said, Okay, what else I want something more. I don't know what he was expecting. Maybe he expected some secret, you know, die that is going to take us straight to donors of the provinces have said again, a lot of them don't get angry. And so what else he asked a third time. And the prophets are some said a lot of them don't get angry. So this shows us something very important, how we control our emotions. emotional regulation is so important for stress relief and stress and coping with stress. You know, this is something that psychologists talked about for a
long time before they used to say, you know, what, don't bottle it up inside. If you feel angry, just let it all out. Just let it all out. Right. And people used to scream and shout and their blood pressure would go up. And if they had aneurism in their brain would explode. And they said, No, no, that was wrong. Don't let it all out. But at the same time, you don't want to bottle it all up. So you can't let it all up. You let it all out and you can bottle it all up. What do you do? You have to take find a way of transforming that negative emotion into something positive. And that's what the prophet system told us. The Prophet system said if the person is is is
Getting angry? What should he do? The person who what are some of the advices he should make will do, he should sit down, if he's sitting down and he's still angry, he should lie down, you know, he should change his physical posture. And that will give him a different perspective, right? If he's and what should a person think about he should think, why am I feeling upset? You know, ultimately it comes if a person is angry about something, often it has to do with our ego, we feel angry that somebody treated as a certain way because we think, Oh, I deserve better, right? I deserve to be treated like this. How dare he speak to me like that, right? It's our ego that makes us get angry.
And that's why the profits are some focus so much on humility. When we decrease our ego, and we humble ourselves, we're not bothered by somebody mistreating us, because we recognize everything happens by Allah subhanaw taala everything. And if somebody treats me in a good way, that's a gift from Allah. subhanaw taala if they don't treat me in a nice way, somebody cuts me off while I'm, I'm driving, by the way drivers here. They cut people off more than anywhere else. I see. When a truck drivers are much friendlier. I'm sorry, I have to say that. But if somebody does something like that to you, you don't get angry, right? You just say, handler, right? You you humble yourself. You don't
say ah, how dare he, I'm gonna go behind him and honk at him or whatever, this whole phenomenon of road rage, right? What what triggers road rage, just egos. Right? So that so humility is linked hand in hand with controlling one's anger as well. So we mentioned many different things. Today, we mentioned the concept of Vicar, we mentioned sola, we mentioned sugar, we mentioned having a positive outlook. We mentioned sleep and exercise, and controlling one's anger, being connected with one's community. So in short, these are all different things that we can take home as practical, effective methods and char data for stress relief. And I'll pass it back to COVID. To conclude.
So I just want to conclude with some practical tips that we can implement right away in our daily lives. Number one, is the importance of anticipating stress. So meaning there are certain things that cause each and every one of us stress. So for example, getting stuck in traffic, no one likes to be stuck in traffic. Number two, going home after a stressful day can actually be something very stressful, when in fact, going into work in the morning can be something very stressful. But something that helps to cope with this is if you're able to anticipate that you will be stressed. So what does that anticipation look like? So one of the biggest problems or complaints that I hear from
women is that they say that when my husband comes home at night from work, he doesn't want to talk to me, he doesn't want to spend time with me, he just wants to be isolated. And that's something that we learn about men is that when men deal with stress, they do it in isolation, they need periods of time by themselves to reflect to do nothing and be you know, numb in the head. And then they can go and socially engaged. But if they don't get to that time, even if they're in a social atmosphere, their body will tell them to do that. So as soon as they walk home, that's what they end up doing is trying to decompress by not engaging. And the wife's wondering like, you know, what type
of insensitive human being did I marry? Why does he not want to engage with me, right? So what we learned from that is anticipate that stress and accommodate appropriately. So what I would suggest is that if you know going home that you've had a stress day, don't go home while you're stressed. What can you do to avoid that, go to Tim Hortons, have some peppermint tea, drink it go home, you've decomposed or decompressed and you're ready to engage. Same thing with getting stuck in traffic. We all know that rush hour, if you leave your house at like eight o'clock onwards, you're getting stuck in traffic. But if you leave literally just 15 minutes early, you can avoid all the traffic, you
arrive into work 15 minutes early, you can check the news, emails, do whatever you want, but at least you're stress free. So anticipate those moments of stress. And that way, you're better able to accommodate to it. Number two, the importance of making checklists. checklists have such a huge benefit. And I want to break it down into two things, things that are in your control, things that are not in your control, something happens in your life that is beyond your control, you submit to it and you say that is the will of Allah that is the decree of a law, it's in my best interest, even if I don't understand it. Suddenly it is in your control, you add to your checklist, and you start
devising a plan as to how you can accomplish it and overcome it. And this checklist, one, it caught her it declutter is the mind. So anything that's in the mind is on this piece of paper now. So there's no stress of, you know, acting upon something that's in your mind as opposed to something on paper. Number two, is that checking something off, as simple as it seems, is something that is so gratifying, because there was something that was causing you stress and that will be completed. So now you have relief automatically at the end of your list if you're able to reward yourself with something. So at the end of a week, you know, you've had a really tough week you will come to
accomplish all of your tasks, you reward yourself with something and that's something even better.
The takeaway there are to make the stress worthwhile at the end of the day. The third and last thing that I will mention, is establishing certain rules of engagement. Again, I'm going to bring this back to a family atmosphere, that human beings get angry human beings get upset, they get frustrated, but in your houses established a simple rule, only one of us is allowed to get angry at a time. If I'm angry right now, you cannot get angry, you have to hear me vent and hear me complain and hear me say whatever I have to say. And then after I'm done, after I've laid out that stress and frustration, then you can have your turn, or at a different day, you will have your turn, where the
rules will be reversed. You've had a stressful day, you need to vent you need to communicate, that is what you do. And I will be patient, I will be tolerant, I will accept and I will not lash back at you. Simple things like this. They prevent things from going out of control, right? When two people are stressed together, that is a recipe for disaster. Whereas if you can just cut it into half, only one person is stressed at a time, you can save half of the world's problems. That way we can save half of the divorces that take place by just these simple techniques in shallow Tada. So I pray that you guys have found this beneficial? Yeah, no problem, shall I pray that you guys have found this
beneficial? And inshallah we will be addressing your questions in sha Allah. So you can either raise your hand and ask your question, or if you want to send it up by paper, you can do so as well. whatever is easiest for you, behind the lights Allah.
Everyone's ready to lead stress free lives.
I can't imagine what leaving a parking lot is going to be like.
Let's see how tolerant we are with each other.
Go ahead, yeah.
What are the signs of stress. So what you will see as a sign of stress is that your blood pressure will be affected severely. So an individual that has very high blood pressure usually has a high amount of stress. Number two, a second sign of stress is your ability to sleep. So you will see that your sleep patterns are affected greatly as well. Someone that is affected by stress will have difficulty sleeping. Number three is that they will be very agitated. So meaning someone will just ask you, how are you doing today? And you'll be very snappy, like, why are you asking me? How am I doing? It's none of your business. You don't need to know someone that's very agitated. Those are
signs of stress. So you see these sort of signs in your life? You should deal with it right away. inshallah. I'll make it easy.
Well, yeah,
go ahead.
Our kids nowadays, of course,
putting stress upon our kids, and, you know, how do we deal with that? So for our kids, we've set these like, standards that are not even humanly possible anymore. We want them to be the perfect Muslim. We want them to get a grades, we want them to be super social, yet refrain from haram at the same time. And these are, you know, standards that are not feasible. Yes, I mean, some of them we should try to strive for. But if we fall short, we should be easygoing and pardoning. So part of dealing with our kids. The best thing that I can always say is always leading by example, whatever you want your child to live up to lead by example, you want your child to be a good Muslim, lead by
example, be a good Muslim, you want your child to be studious, show the value of education in the house, by having a library by you spending family, time as a family reading and discussing issues by you taking time out of your life, to help them with their homework, if you're able to do this scholastically. And academically, they will progress even further. Number three is in terms of the whole halal and haram issue.
People that immigrated into this country. Number one, it was a time where things were technologically a lot different, we did not have access to a lot of the stuff that kids have access to now, number two, because of the result of that our societies were very different as well, meaning that the level of immorality that we have in our societies today did not exist. Like I want you to dish to understand one simple trend. One of the recent trends is that they were eating tide pods, right, a tide pod is a detergent. And the people were eating this detergent and recording it on social media. And they were showing that how they would throw it up or get sick, and some even died
from it. But this is that the insanity that is taking place in our day and age. So you have to understand that your kids will make mistakes. But the way you navigate through those mistakes is of the utmost importance, discussion with them, making them understand and making sure they understand what the consequences of their decisions are. But at the same time giving them autonomy that at the end of the day, in the sight of Allah you are responsible, you will be rewarded with God or you will be punished with bad you have to understand those consequences. So communication is of the utmost importance. So that's something
I hope that will will help inshallah I wanted to make a comment on something, of course, yes. And then you can take the next two questions at once.
In a shift, I was mentioning earlier about the importance of not worrying about things that are beyond your control. And it reminded me of something that is a big cause of stress for many people today, in the Muslim community is our constant exposure to bad news, right? On a daily basis, we open the newspaper or website or television for check the news. And you see, oh, there's, there's always something bad about either Islamophobia, more increasing Islamophobia, hatred towards the Muslim community, or you're looking at the suffering of Muslims around the world. You're reading something about the crisis in Syria, or the Rohingya Muslims, you know, children being killed,
people being displaced refugees, all of this stuff, and it creates a constant sense of stress. And now there's two aspects here. On one hand, the profitsystem, said that the own mind is like one body, right? One part of it feels pain, the whole the whole body should feel pain. So we should have a sense of connectedness with the global Muslim community. But there's another extreme that I've started to notice. And I remember one, one brother saying, Oh, you know, did you see this video that happened? And look at this child and Syria on this one. And there are there are Rohingya Muslims. And following every single posting on social media about it every single news headline, I asked him,
What are you doing about it? Or is it going to change any? Are you taking action, because if you're taking looking at enough news, to make you more aware to increase it, because you're active in your community, raising awareness, and you're doing something about it, that's good. But if you're just taking overwhelming bad news, bad news, bad news, and you're not doing anything about it, it's going to harm your mental health, because you can't be exposed to all of this all the time. And, and and preserve your your normal function. Right, it's so much to be the horrific things that are happening there. If you're watching this and checking constantly, it becomes overwhelming. So we have to
moderate our exposure to the news. So how many people check the news more than twice a day?
That's too much. What are you doing with that extra information? You know, and how much time do you spend checking the news? Do you say okay, for the first I'm going to check all of CNN, then BBC are there, my dad checks the asset, and he checks all the Urdu language newspapers, I'm like, okay, that's that's too much news, right? You don't need that much news information, right? You You just take as much as you need to be an aware, conscious, active citizen, and doing your part. And all this data is going to ask us for what we are able to do locally for long enough son in law was our unless panda does not burden a soul with more than we can increase your da, increase the amount that
you can do in your community to raise awareness, if you can, can donate money to charity organizations to help others do that. But don't overwhelm yourself with negative news that's going to make you depressed all the time, that's going to make you miserable all the time. And not and it's going to impact you, then you're not able to to function. Well. You know, there's something that they always mentioned to social workers, they give the example. They say when you're in the plane, what does what do they say in the in the, you know, the safety demonstration at the beginning of the plane, they say, for first place your mask on yourself, before assisting a family member,
right? If you're not able to take care of yourself, you're not going to be able to take care of somebody else. So it's important to also have this idea of self care of making sure that you yourself are not overwhelmed, where and feeling depressed and anxious and miserable. And then you're not able to do anything, you know, productive about about the problems. So I find that that's a becoming an increasing issue in our times, where we're bombarded with so much negative news. Sometimes you just have to turn it off and say, I'm going to focus, these are my goals. This is what I'm going to do in sha Allah. And I'll just, you know, hear about the major headlines from other
other people or from these sources. And I won't spend more than 15 minutes a day checking the news because really, that 15 minutes is more than enough time to really know and know the headlines, so that I find that that's another important thing to mention. Yes. Yes.
Okay, so
the brother asked a very important question, can you can compare and contrast between anxiety and stress? What do they mean? So the everyday use of the term we often use them interchangeably. Sometimes we say, Oh, I'm feeling anxious. Sometimes we say I'm feeling stressed. But there's a medical condition called generalized
Anxiety Disorder, there's actually many different anxiety disorders. So these are specific conditions that stress could lead to remember, at the beginning of the talk, I said, when when you go outside, if a car is coming towards you, your body has a stress response right? Now, some people because they develop a medical condition, they might get that stress response at any time. So there's one anxiety disorder called panic disorder. At a certain point, you know, they might feel that sudden sense of panic, over overwhelming feeling that oh, my God, I'm gonna die. Right. And that's when the stress has led to their stress response is not normal anymore. So they're feeling a
huge amount of stress for when the stimulus isn't there to feel all that stress. So what happens is anxiety disorders or when your stress level is not appropriate for the context that you're in? It's it becomes a medical condition. But in general, we often use the term anxieties, meaning I'm worried about something I'm stressed about something I'm anxious about something. Does that answer the question? Sean, has another question. Yes.
Shall we all face? Okay, so medicinal marijuana?
Brother asked, Are there any herbal remedies from Islamic tradition, that deal with the topic of stress? So there's when it comes to prophetic medicine or labor number we, the Prophet says, I mentioned a few things as being useful medical treatments, but the Prophet system didn't go into a lot of detail on herbal remedies are these kinds of things so we don't have that and narrated this many Muslims later on, came up with different ideas about certain things. But one thing I'll say in general, about conventional medicine, versus herbal medicine or natural pathi, some of the alternative what's called alternative medicines.
The it's not that so basically, the way that that it works is that many of these other medical treatments, herbal remedies, or whatever they might actually work, right, they might have a benefit. But that benefit, how do we know about it? It's because one generation used it, they learned it from previous generation. So you're relying on the wisdom of a culture over time, in conventional medicine? Well, we we now have something called evidence based medicine. So in order to say that this medication is useful, we have to have a basically an experiment where we do we give some people this medication, other people get what's called a placebo means it looks like a drug. But it's not
actually a drug, right? They think they're taking the medicine. And we compare between the two groups. And we see does this medicine actually help them or not? Is it called a randomized clinical trial, and every medication that's approved, has to meet this type of criteria. So we don't have the evidence for herbal medications. To say that these we know for sure, who can treat stress or can treat depression or anxiety disorder or other medical conditions, we can say that maybe they work some people find that they work. Some people don't find that they work, but we don't have any clear cut evidence for this. The things that I mentioned in the talk is something that they have clear cut
evidence for, like sleep, physical exercise, spirituality, the people have actually done randomized clinical trials on these different things and found that one group does exercise the other group doesn't do exercise. This group has less stress, right? Or engages in some form of spirituality or whatever, they compare different groups. And so they design an experiment. And so they have scientific evidence to prove that this type of treatment is is useful. Does that answer the question? Do you have a follow up question to that? Yeah.
If someone
smoked marijuana,
I said it wasn't about marijuana.
Because he said
marijuana is legal by legal means.
Okay, so the first thing that was was asking about a person is going through stress and anxiety and medicinal marijuana is prescribed for them by their doctor, are they allowed to take it
I want to give you a brief introduction to something that if you look at the
History of coffee and Islam. Coffee originally was considered hot on throughout the ages and the you know, the core scholars of Islam considered it impermissible to consume, they considered it and intoxicating, considered something that, you know would would hinder the capacity of the mind. But as the scholars learned more about it, and eventually became something permissible. Now, the reason why I mentioned this is not to say that medicinal marijuana is hard, or that marijuana is harder. What I'm trying to say is that there is a process of something being medicinal and eventually being studied enough islamically so that a verdict is achieved. That's what I want to talk about. So
medicinal marijuana in the world, in the Muslim world is non existent in the western Muslim world. It is something in the last few years that is becoming discussed and is becoming researched more, and there is no definitive conclusion. In terms of where it stands. What I can say is that recreational marijuana without a shadow of a doubt is hot. All right, recreational marijuana without a shadow of a doubt is hard on medicinal marijuana when certain conditions may be permissible, according to certain scholars. So what I can say is, a couple of weeks I was a pharmacist by profession, and in some scholar, he has a research paper on this Ellen M. source.com. Go to source
you'll see read his paper, it's like 32 pages long. You need to read the whole thing with a scientist in order to understand it, but it says that it may be allowed with conditions. So that having been said, I would say that if a person can avoid it, that is a safer approach without a shadow of a doubt. Although Tanana I think we will conclude with that inshallah Dr. Nasir myself will be here to answer any personal questions that you may have. Desire kumbhakarna for attending Subhan Nicola Moby Dick shadowline istockphoto Lake