As-Salaamu Alaikum everyone, my name is Fulio and today I want to talk about three practical
steps you can take to minimize the slump of the mid-month during Ramadan. I want to start with a scenario here. Imagine you enter the month of Ramadan with one goal in mind, to
pray tawda at the masjid every night. First 10 nights, you're crushing it. The vibe is nice at the masjid, all of your friends are there, the energy is good, you're excited,
and you tell yourself, I got this, I can do this. The next 10 days come around, and then what happens? Less and less people show up for the masjid. So what do you do? And what
happens next? From my personal experience, what usually happens around these times are two things. Number one, all of a sudden I start to feel tired. And number two, now that I don't see all those people that I got used to praying next to, the friends that I would
go to, all of a sudden I start feeling FOMO, or fear of missing out. So what can you do to address these things? Starting with the first one, feeling tired. I want to make it
very clear that during Ramadan, feeling tired is perfectly normal. You're staying up late, you're waking up early, you're not eating, you're not drinking water, your routine is
kind of in flux, so it's perfectly natural to feel tired at this time. However, what you don't want to happen is for your tiredness to get in the way of you actually accomplishing your goals that you set for the month. So what can you do? The first thing you can do
is take a nap. The Prophet ﷺ used to encourage the companions to take a nap around midday. For those of you who are at work, try using your lunch break to take a nap. And if you
can't do that, maybe talk to your employer about setting up some sort of flex hour schedule such that maybe you can come in a little early, work through lunch, leave early, and take
advantage of a quick nap when you get home. The second thing you can do is eat suhoor. I know a lot of people who try to catch up on sleep by skipping suhoor entirely. From
my perspective, not only is that not really enough time to make up for the sleep that you actually need, but you're also doing yourself a disservice by limiting the amount of fuel
that you need to carry yourself throughout the day. The Prophet ﷺ also used to encourage people to eat the suhoor. He had a, there's a hadith, a narration of the Prophet ﷺ where
he says, eat the suhoor, for verily, Allah blesses those who partake in the suhoor. So not only will you have the energy to fuel yourself through the day, but Allah will put added barakah in your day to hopefully give you the energy that you need to sustain yourself.
So the other thing I mentioned that sometimes happens during the month of Ramadan that's difficult to fight off is that sense of fomo or fear of missing out. This usually happens when you see your friends or other people in the community start posting all these awesome
pictures on Facebook, social media, WhatsApp groups of them having great iftars with people, having these big community hangouts, and you, while you're trying to stay consistent, praying
tarawih, the thought comes into your mind as to whether or not it's actually worth keeping up with tarawih instead of going to attend some of these events. The recommendation I
have for you is to not think about it as an either or, but view it as a potential opportunity to add something else to your Ramadan routine. So for instance, one thing you can do to actually
benefit from this time period, knowing that people are out wanting to spend time at iftars, is to host an iftar yourself. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, whoever
feeds a fasting person will receive the reward of that fasting person without diminishing the reward of that person. So imagine that on top of your qiyam al-layl, your tarawih,
your reading Quran, you're also receiving the added reward of feeding a bunch of people. But what if you can't actually host your own iftar? The next best thing is to just attend one and bring something with you. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said that Allah
will reward you for feeding a person who is fasting, even if you give them a sip of milk, a date, or a sip of water. So take advantage of all of the iftars that are happening, go to one, bring something with you, even if it's just water, and Allah will reward you.
So in sum, two things we need to think about, how to fight off fatigue and how to fight off FOMO. The first part, make sure you're factoring in a nap into your schedule, make sure you're getting up to have suhoor. To fight off FOMO, consider throwing your own
iftar, or if you can't throw one, attend one and bring something small with you. We ask Allah to accept from us our fast, to accept from us our qiyam, to accept our reading and
listening to the Quran. We ask Allah to accept from us the iftars that we plan to throw, the intentions that we're making for the month. We pray that He allows us to witness Laylatul Qadr and receive the benefits of that night, and we ask that He help us cultivate good
qualities that we can carry with us throughout the remainder of the year. JazakumAllahu khayran
for listening. Asalaamu Alaikum Wa Rahmatullahi Ta'ala wa Barakatuhu.
