Concentrating on the physical benefits of Ramadan fasting is to miss the point
Increasingly, each Ramadan, we hear scientists, athletes and even the occasional celebrity talking about the benefits of the holy month, which will soon draw to a close. Such claims are well-intentioned, and many are even backed by evidence. For instance, compelling research suggests links between fasting and cholesterol regulation and fasting and enhanced mood.
While such benefits are by-products, or side effects, of Ramadan, they are not its primary aim. The holy month is not intended to be primarily about enhancing health and psychological well-being. Instead, fasting in Ramadan, like the fasting practices of earlier religious communities, is explicitly prescribed for spiritual ends.
However, the well-being benefits of Ramadan and other spiritual practices have not gone unnoticed. Psychologists, coaching professionals and well-being gurus frequently borrow ideas from the world’s great religious and philosophical traditions. Sometimes the borrowing is acknowledged, and sometimes it isn’t. I also suspect that occasionally the authors of “new” approaches to well-being are unaware that they’re reinventing the wheel.
In short, much of the global well-being and self-improvement industry is essentially old wisdom in new bottles: earlier ideas repackaged to appeal to contemporary sensibilities. Brand evangelists use buzzwords and jargon (mind-hacking, heartfulness, urge surfing) to revitalise ideas that would have been familiar to our Stone Age ancestors.
This borrowing and repackaging can be, of course, big business. The self-improvement industry has boomed in recent years. For example, the number of self-improvement book titles in US bookstores tripled between 2013 and 2019. A report by NPD Group, an American market research company, suggests the global self-improvement industry was worth $10.5 billion a year as of 2020, and is growing rapidly. Whenever I read popular self-improvement titles, I typically hear the echoes of ancient philosophers and humanity’s great spiritual teachers. For example, the concept of grit, popularised by Angela Duckworth in Grit: The Power of Passion and Persistence, overlaps with the concept of fortitude, one of Catholicism’s cardinal virtues. It is also reminiscent of the Islamic writings on sabr – frequently translated as patience or perseverance.
Similarly, in-person wellbeing interventions typically aim to cultivate traits like kindness (paying-it-forward), gratitude (journaling) and awe (savouring). But, again, these are all qualities that are encouraged within the world’s great religious frameworks.
Some well-being interventions, however, are open about their spiritual underpinnings and origins. Many forms of yoga and some mindfulness practices acknowledge their spiritual roots while still downplaying them. For example, John Kabat Zinn, the founder of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), worked hard to present the intervention in a way acceptable to mainstream Americans within a secularised healthcare setting. He writes: “I bent over backward to structure it and find ways to speak about it that avoided as much as possible the risk of it being seen as Buddhist, ‘New Age,’ ‘Eastern Mysticism’ or just plain ‘flaky.’”
This borrowing and repackaging, in most instances, is well-intentioned. Efforts to promote human flourishing are typically motivated by empathy and compassion – our innate tendency to care about, and want to alleviate, the suffering of others. Regarding the motivations for developing and promoting MBSR in the West, Mr Kabat-Zin suggests mindfulness is a vehicle for “moving the bell curve of our society toward greater sanity and well-being”.
Greater sanity and wellbeing are needed. The societal increase in mental health problems has been documented. For example, in the wake of Covid-19, the World Health Organisation reported a 25 per cent rise in the global prevalence of depression and anxiety. However, the rate of mental health problems was on the rise before the pandemic.
Several research studies trace the increase in adolescent mental health problems to a specific year: 2011, when social media took off. Gazing further back in time, Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud’s protégé, connected the rise of mental health problems to dwindling religiosity. Concerning Europe, he writes: “… with the decline of religious life, the neuroses [mental health problems] grow noticeably more frequent”.
Whatever the cause or causes for the current rates of mental health problems, there is a growing need for activities and experiences that help us find greater meaning, purpose, belonging and contentment. As we accelerate full throttle into the digital age, I suspect such human needs will be in even greater demand.
Those presently wrapped up in Ramadan are indeed fortunate. The month encourages fasting and exposes worshippers, night after night, to messages about patience, gratitude, generosity, humility, mindfulness, forgiveness and awe. Beyond the individual, the holy month encourages togetherness through communal fast-breaking or congregational praying. For the human psyche, the benefits of Ramadan are incalculable and ineffable.
I enjoyed Ramadan 15 times while I was a resident of the UAE. Each year was unique, beautiful and memorable. From the exquisite recitation of the Quran reverberating around Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque during the night prayers to the joyful atmosphere of the Ramadan tents. If holidays (holy days) tend to leave us rejuvenated, what about holy months?
Ramadan fasting, like the practices of earlier religious communities, is explicitly prescribed for spiritual ends