M A N A G EYOUR SLEEP

Are you sleeping for the akhirah?

by Abu Productive

Posted on Tuesday, May 17, 2011 in Articles

One of the major issues of productivity that people face is how many hours should

they sleep. Those who love their sleep argue that it’s important to sleep at least 6-8

hours each night for a long healthy life, whilst those on the other side believe that

sleep is a waste of time and we should sleep the bare minimum to keep us going.

Recently I’ve started thinking about sleep in a different way which helped me resolve

this dilemma; the answer seems to be the intention of sleep; if you’re sleeping for

dunya (that is to be completely relaxed at work, home, family and to have a long

healthy life), then sleeping would be very important to you and you would ensure that

you sleep a minimum of 6-8 hours each night. Sleep will become sacred and the

overruling factor in most of your decisions, e.g. Should I wake up for tahajjud or sleep?

Sleep! Should I wake up early to work on this important piece of work or sleep? Sleep!

However, if you’re sleeping for akhirah, or sleeping for the sake of Allah (Subhanahu

Wa Ta’ala), you’ll be sleeping just enough to give your due right to your body whilst not

neglecting the fact that you’re here in this world for a temporary period and you’ll soon return to your

Lord. You would try to minimize your sleep so that it doesn’t affect your worship – i.e. if you’re asking yourself

whether you should sleep or wake up for tahajjud, you would choose to sleep less, you would choose the akhirah,

where you would enjoy eternal rest. And this is the description that Allah (Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala) gives about His

slaves:

They used to sleep but little by night [invoking their Lord (Allah) and praying, with fear and hope]. (Adh-

Dhariyat, Chapter #51, Verse #17)

Their sides forsake their beds, to invoke their Lord in fear and hope, and they spend (in charity in Allah’s

Cause) out of what We have bestowed on them. (As-Sajdah, Chapter #32, Verse #16)

Having said that, I would like to emphasize that giving due right to your body is partof the concept

of sleeping for akhirah. This is evident in the hadeeth of Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him): (39) Narrated

‘Abdullah bin ‘Amr bin Al-’As: Allah’s Apostle said, “O ‘Abdullah! Have I not been informed that you fast all the day and

stand in prayer all night?” I said, “Yes, O Allah’s Apostle!” He said, “Do not do that! Observe the fast sometimes and

also leave them (the fast) at other times; stand up for the prayer at night and also sleep at night. Your body has a

right over you, your eyes have a right over you and your wife has a right over you.” (Sahih Bukhari, Book #62,

Hadith #127)

Subhan Allah, how balanced and practical is a true Muslim’s way of life! So you should “listen” to your body; some

days you may feel energetic and happy to sleep 3-4 hours, and you’ll be fine. However, some days your body will

want you to sleep for 6-8 hours whilst not neglecting your obligatory duties such as salah or tending to your

parent’s and family’s needs and that’s fine.

Here are some practical tips regarding sleep:

1. Always prepare for sleep, check out ProductiveMuslim’s sleep routine.

2. If you can, have a nap before or after Zhuhr prayer to reduce the amount of sleep you need at night.

3. Record your sleep time over a course of a week to understand your sleep pattern and how to optimize it.

Hope this helps! Have you been thinking about this issue? How did you resolve? What’s your sleep pattern like? And

how can you make your sleep for akhira?

ProductiveMuslim Sleep Routine

by Abu Productive

Posted on Sunday, March 13, 2011 in Articles

If you’ve started waking up early and working in those early hours of the day as we

recommend at ProductiveMuslim.com, you’ll find that it’s pretty hard to be consistent

each and every day with this routine. And when you search for the reasons for this

inconsistency, you’ll realise that it’s mainly because it’s hard to regulate your sleep;

one day you sleep well, so you wake up early and can work hard. Other days, you

don’t sleep so well and those early hours are pretty difficult to maintain.

Sleep, as any other activity we do as humans, can be optimized by planning well in advance and following a

particular routine each night. You might think: “Dude, I just crash and sleep”. Well, that’s one way of doing it, but

here’s another routine. Try it out and tell me if sleep doesn’t become a rewarding, spiritual and fulfilling experience

for you after this. The following sleep routine requires you to prepare for it at least 90 minutes BEFORE you actually

sleep. And it’s basically dividing those 90 minutes into 3 parts:

1. One third for Your Lord 2. One third for Your Self 3.One third for Your Sleep

1. One third for Your Lord: This starts with you making wudhu, brushing your teeth, putting on nice clothes and perfume and praying Tahajjud

and Witr for Allah (Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala) (Note: If you prefer to wake up before Fajr to pray these night prayers then

definitely go with that. However, if you can’t trust yourself to wake up that early, it’s better that you pray Tahajjud

and Witr Salah BEFORE you sleep). This is my favourite part of the sleep routine and favourite part of the day!

It’s such a calming experience after going through a long hard day, to stand in front of your Lord, recite His verses,

supplicate to Him and ask Him of whatever you desire in this world and the Next. Do this for a couple of nights and

you wouldn’t want to give up doing it! In fact, throughout your day, you’ll be anticipating this moment and looking

forward to it!

2. One third for Your Self: This is where you prepare yourself for sleep by putting on your pyjamas, getting into bed and reading a good book

for at least 30 minutes. If you’re like me, ideas and thoughts will keep popping into your head as you read, and you

will want to save them for later. For these, I have a plain notebook and pen/pencil next to me to scribble anything

(and I mean anything) that pops in my head! You’ll be surprised how many great ideas originate from these 30

minutes. Alternatively, instead of reading, you may spend these 30 minutes brainstorming on a plain notebook any

ideas,plans, and projects you have in mind. You don’t have to come up with the ‘perfect’ idea/solution, but simply

brainstorm as much as you can then literally “sleep on it” (as the saying goes). In the morning, you’ll be surprised at

what your sub-conscious mind brings forth for you.

3. One third for Your Sleep: I’ve said that this is a third for your sleep, but truly this is a third for your Lord to bless your sleep, and basically this

involves going through the duas and verses that one should recite before sleeping as per the Sunnah of Prophet

Muhammad (peace be upon him). These include reciting Surah Al-Mulk and Surah Al-Sajdah and other supplications

recommended before sleeping. For me, this last part of the routine is like the cherry on top of the cake! Nothing fills

you with more tranquility than to sleep having uttered the words of Allah (Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala).

So there you have it, the ProductiveMuslim routine for Sleep. You may think it’s lengthy, but there has been no day

that I’ve followed it, except that I’ve slept peacefully and woken up peacefully.

Hope it works well for you and that you have a productive sleep – Sweet dreams!

PS: The ‘ideal’ ProductiveMuslim morning routine

How to Wake up for Fajr?

by Abu Productive

Posted on Monday, February 21, 2011 in Tips

How do you wake up for fajr? And I don’t mean wake up for a day or two, but how do

you keep waking up for fajr, constantly, everyday, without fail.

There’s loads & loads of websites online giving you tips and advice on how to wake

up early. But our focus is not on worldly tips (which should be taken by all means,

part of tying the camel ;)), our focus is on the spiritual means.

My dear brothers/sisters, every day when you read Surat Al-Fatiha, at least 17 times a day, you recite the

verse “You Alone we Worship, and You Alone we Seek Help from”: You want to worship Allah? “Yes!” You

need His help then. You want to wake up for Fajr? “Yes please!” Guess what, you need Allah. You cannot, I

repeat, cannot, wake up for fajr without Allah’s help. Now ask yourself the question, what can I do to show

Allah that I truly and utterly want to wake up for fajr?!

Have you ever had days when you’re about to go to sleep, and you have this deep feeling that you’ll definitely wake

up for fajr? And have you ever had days when you know for certain that you’ll oversleep? Imagine the two scenarios,

which I’m sure some of us have gone through:

Scenario 1:

You feel high with Eman, you’ve prayed your witr, read some Quran, and even though you’ve got 2 hours to sleep till

fajr, you’re certain you’ll wake up because you’ve set your mind, heart and body to make sure you wake up. In fact,

sometimes you keep on waking in the middle of the night thinking it’s fajr time out of fear that you’re going to miss

it. If you haven’t experienced this, think of a time when you had to catch an early flight or a bus/train, and think of

how your mind, heart and body were switched on, and it doesn’t matter what time you slept, you’ll wake up.

Scenario 2:

There are days when deep down you really don’t want to wake up, you hope that you “oversleep” so you feel less

guilty about it, and Allah may have mercy upon you and still wake you up, and that’s when the battle with the

snooze alarm starts and the classic shaytaan trick “just 5 more minutes…” begins.

How do we maintain scenario 1 everyday?

With these 2 scenarios, one details a feeling deep down inside that you’re definitely waking up, and another where

you know you won’t wake up because deep down inside you don’t want to and you’re not ready to take the fight

against shaytaan of waking up in the morning.

Below I detail some practical and spiritual tools, that will help you in achieving scenario 1 all the time

inshaAllah:

Spiritual Tools

Know who Allah is: This is the key and number one tool to waking up for Fajr. If you know Who you’re

worshipping, and you know that He requests that you get up in the morning and pray to Him, you’ll wake up. It’s

our lack of understanding of who Allah is that makes us slump into scenario 2 all the time. Know your Lord, that’s

key.

Sincerity: Be sincere about waking up for fajr, don’t just say to yourself: “InshaAllah, it’ll be nice if I wake up for

fajr” be sincere about it, and say: “I will wake up for fajr” I find it useful sometimes to talk to myself about it

before going to sleep and say: “I will wake up for fajr, i don’t care how, but I’ll definitely will!”

Wudu before sleep: Ibn Abbas reported that Allah’s Messenger said: “Purify these bodies and Allah will purify

you, for there is no slave who goes to sleep in a state of purity but an Angel spends the night with him, and

every time he turns over, [the Angel] says, ‘O Allah! Forgive Your slave, for he went to bed in a state of purity.”

Do you think that such a person would be left to oversleep and miss fajr?

Witr Prayer + Dua: Make sure you don’t sleep before performing your witr prayer, and supplicate to Allah during

your Witr prayer to help you wake up for Fajr, remember, “You Alone we Worship, and You Alone we Seek help

from”

Read some Quran: Ending the day with verses of the Noble Quran will sure put your focus straight on waking

up for salaat. Prophet Muhammad used to recommend that we recite Surat Al-Sajdah, and Surat Al-Mulk

(Chapters 32 and 67) before going to sleep.

Remember Allah before you go to Sleep: This is part of the first point I made, and you can find all the

supplications you need to recite before going to sleep here. You might need to print them off and read them off

paper at first, but within a week or two you should be able to memorize them fully and just recite them before

dozing off.

Remember the rewards attached to Fajr Salaat: from being safe from being a hypocrite, to having light on

the day of judgement, to being under Allah’s protection the whole day, to having laziness removed from us that

day and being productive. Remember these rewards and you’ll sure wake up.

Other tools I use that help me a lot: Ask a friend/family member to wake you up: This is the number one rule for me to wake up. Get a family, friend,

spouse to wake up, and help each other, if you get up before them, don’t be selfish and make sure they are awake

too.

1.5 hours sleep rule: Aaaah.. here’s a secret trick, there’s a theory in the Sleep science that says that every

human being completes an entire sleep cycle in 1.5 hours, therefore, if you can wake up at the end of a multiple

of 1.5 hours (e.g. 1.5 hours, or 3 hours, or 4.5 hours..etc) you’ll wake up fresh and rejuvenated. Otherwise, you’ll

wake up lazy. So if fajr is at 5am, and you sleep at 12am, make sure you set your alarm at 4.30am, because that

gives you 4.5 hours to sleep. (Of course, if you take 1/2 an hour to fall to sleep, you might need to add that into

your calculation).

Nap in the afternoon: Another lifehack, taken from the Sunnah and recommended by many, make sure you nap

in the afternoon, for just 20 minutes! yup, just 20 minutes. Trust me, for the past 3 years, I’ve mastered the 20

min nap, and everytime it never fails to rejuvenate me. If you need to train yourself to nap for that long, I highly

recommend www.pzizz.com, a wonderful software that trains you for these short naps, it’s what I used to train

myself.

Promise yourself a grand breakfast if you wake up for Fajr: I’m a breakfast guy, so if I wake up early, I sure

like to have a big breakfast. Sometimes i look forward to my breakfast from the afternoon before, and just like a

small reward, treat yourself to a massive breakfast in the morning. It’ll definitely set your day straight as well

inshaAllah.

Well, that’s all I can think of. If you think of new ideas, or you have other ways to wake up for fajr and hence

keep up your productivity boost, give me a shout in the comments section below!

7 Tips on How to Stay Up after Fajr

by Abu Productive

Posted on Wednesday, September 7, 2011 in Articles

Nothing kills productivity like waking up at 10am to start your day, or waking up with

just enough time to sloppily get dressed and race to work, arriving frantically and

foggy-brained. You try to get through your To-Do List but before you know it, it is

time for dinner, and then Isha prayer, and you are feeling quite unaccomplished. The

problem is that you had a good 2-5 hours during which you could have achieved

maximized productivity, but you slept through it!

What time am I talking about? The time right after Fajr prayers. It is a blessed time that Prophet Muhammad (Peace

be upon him) made dua for, He said: “O Allah, bless my Ummah in its early hours”.

Here are 7 ways to help you stay up after Fajr to become a beneficiary of blessings and success insha’Allah:

1. Go to bed early and rest

After the Isha prayer, the Prophet (Peace and blessings be upon him) would not like to engage in unnecessary talk

and would take to his house to go to sleep. This is the similar life-style for many communities where electricity has

not created a false sense of daylight. Societies that maintain going down with the sun inevitably rise with the sun,

making the most of their morning to do ‘ibaadah or secure their livelihood. If you need to fit in more sleep, try taking

a nap before or after Zhuhr.

2. Untie your three knots

”During your sleep, Satan knots three knots at the back of the head of each of you, and he breathes the following

words at each knot, ‘The night is, long, so keep on sleeping,’ If that person wakes up and celebrates the praises of

Allah, then one knot is undone, and when he performs ablution the second knot is undone, and when he prays, all

the knots are undone, and he gets up in the morning lively and in a good mood, otherwise he gets up dull and

gloomy. ” (Bukhari)

It is not a surprise that Shaitan is trying to prevent us from the worship of Allah and prevent us from a productive

morning. However, Alhamdulillah, we were given the prescription to combat his whispering:

a. Celebrate the praises of Allah by saying:

Alhamdulillahi allathee ahyaanaa ba’da maa amaatanaa wa ilayhin nushoor. ‘All praise and thanks is for Allaah who

gave us life after having taken it from us and unto Him is the Resurrection.‘

b. Perform ablution

c. Pray

Then after you have prayed, do not allow yourself to get back into bed. Perhaps splashing your face with cold water,

having a bite to eat, or drinking some water or fruit juice will help brush off any drowsiness.

3. Perform the prescribed dhikr after Fajr

If you still have the urge to jump back into your warm comfy bed after Fajr, remember that the best extension of the

prayer is the dhikr that you perform afterwards.

”The angels keep on asking Allah’s forgiveness for anyone of you, as long as he is at his Musalla (praying place) and

he does not pass wind (Hadath). They say, ‘O Allah! Forgive him, O Allah! be Merciful to him.” (Bukhari)

Plus, the longer you stay up, the less likely you will go back to sleep (and the less likely you will be able to fall

asleep).

You can find the dua to say after prayer and in the morning in Fortress of a Muslim, or online at www.makedua.com

4. Aim to pray Duha

Duha prayer is an extra voluntary prayer you can pray approximately 20 minutes after sunrise until 45 minutes

before Zhuhr prayer.

In the morning charity is due from every bone in the body of every one of you. Every utterance of Allah’s

glorification is an act of charity (Subhan Allah). Every utterance of praise of Him is an act of charity (Alhamdulillah),

every utterance of profession of His Oneness is an act of charity (Laa ilaha ill Allah), every utterance of profession

of His Greatness is an act of charity (Allahu Akbar), enjoining good is an act of charity, forbidding what is

distreputable is an act of charity, and two rak’ahs which one prays in the forenoon will suffice. [Muslim]

Who wouldn’t want that reward?

By the time it is allowed to pray Salat-ul-Duha, you will be more awake and will have already completed your

morning dhikr

5. Recite/reflect/memorize Quran

After Fajr prayer is an amazing time to be alone with the Quran. Before the day’s distractions set you off course, use

this time to recite, reflect and memorize The Quran. If you are like me, if I do not read my daily dose of the Quran in

the morning, I find it incredibly difficult to sit after work or at the end of the day to try to get some quality time with

the Quran. Believe me, you will feel the benefit when you start your day remembering Allah.

Establish prayer at the decline of the sun [from its meridian] until the darkness of the night and [also] the Qur’an of

dawn. Indeed, the recitation of dawn is ever witnessed.(17:78)

6. Exercise

An early morning walk or stretches will get your blood moving and you will find that you have the energy to stay up

and make the most of your day insha’Allah.

7. Have a list of tasks ready

Has this ever happened to you? You are awake, bright and early, feeling particularly productive. You look

around…and you begin to ask yourself what to do. If you do not have a plan for your morning, then you will

inevitably waste time wandering and half-completing tasks. Use the morning wisely by writing your To-Do List first

thing after Salat-ul-Duha, or even better, the night before. Aim to complete 3-5 tasks before you set off to work or

school.

You will energized and fantastic having recited Quran, remembered Allah (dhikr), performed an extra

prayer, and knocked off items from your To-Do List…all before you go to school or work! And you will still

have the whole day ahead of you insha’Allah.

O Allah, help us benefit from the beautiful morning hours. Ameen.

Link: What’s your Morning Routine?

About the Author

Amira Murphy is an educator and aspiring writer who has been benefitting from Productive Muslim since the

website was first launched. She enjoys writing about forgotten and neglected practices from the Prophet’s Sunnah,

Peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, as well as health and nutrition and green and sustainable living.