Empowering Muslim Mothers: Three Habits to Cultivate a Productive Lifestyle

Embracing the journey of motherhood while maintaining a sense of productivity can be both fulfilling and challenging. As Muslim mothers, balancing various responsibilities requires a thoughtful approach to self-care and personal growth. In this blog post, we delve into three transformative habits – reading, walking, and practicing gratitude – that not only enhance productivity but also nurture the mind, body, and soul. Join us on this exploration of empowering rituals that can positively impact your life as a Muslim mom, bringing a harmonious blend of purpose and tranquility to your daily routine.

Reading

"Read in the name of your Lord who created. Created man from a clot. Read and your Lord is the Most Generous. Who taught by the pen. Taught man that which he knew not." Surah Al-Alaq (96:1-5)

So let's begin. Habit number one is that you should spend a little bit of time reading every single day. Now, reading has lots of potential advantages. For example, reading helps your cognitive function and your memory. We can never say we know everything. You should be trying to increase your knowledge all the time. Now, you might be wondering, what should I be reading? It completely depends on what interests you have and what goals in life you have.

I'm not just talking about religious knowledge and reading of the Quran. We should all be doing that and reading the translation as well as the Quran and the tafsir to understand it, but also reading on a whole load of other topics that are relevant to you.

So, for example, I am interested in business, I try and read as many business books as I can. The ones that are really important and relevant in my niche. Another thing that I'm personally interested in is child development because of my parent coaching. So I'll always be on the lookout for any really good child development books or any parenting books that are relevant and to see if any tips and strategies I can apply to my own children or that I can teach to my students. I'm also interested in personal development.  I'll always look at the top authors in that field and try and read. Now you might be thinking I don't have enough time in the day to read because I've got a lot going on. Well, there's lots of ways you can overcome that.

For example, there are lots of apps. There's even a really popular app called Blinkist where they have summarised all the key books in lots and lots of different niches and you can just read the summary and it tells you at the beginning how many minutes it takes so some of them are really quick and they are all easily digestible. In under 10 minutes you can read a book; on a commute or if you're a mum at home you can read them in the house as is convenient, maybe just before you go to bed or when you wake up or when you've got a spare 10 minutes in the daytime. There's also audiobooks that you can easily get access so that you can listen while you're doing something else so that you can still benefit from books.

A further advantage is that reading books increases empathy and emotional intelligence. It obviously increases your vocabulary. You know, as a speech therapist, one of the things we are always telling the teachers, especially of the children in the younger schools is that more. they've been exposed to of different types of vocabulary from a really young age, really, really benefits the child later on in life, even when they're a little bit older in primary school.

So you should always be trying to increase your own vocabulary and your own knowledge anyway.  Another thing with reading is it helps your focus and it helps your concentration, especially in this day and age where we're bombarded with digital things and doing everything quickly in our fast paced society. It's really nice to be able to just sit in a corner with a book if you can and if you can't with an actual book then like I've said there's other ways in which you can still enjoy reading.

Going For A Walk

 "And the servants of the Most Merciful are those who walk upon the earth easily, and when the ignorant address them [harshly], they say [words of] peace." Surah Al-Furqan (25:63)

Habit number two that we should all be doing every day is going for a walk. Now, maybe you already do this. Maybe you already walk every day to and from somewhere. But what I mean is go for a walk where you really appreciate and can see nature. So lots of greenery, lots of trees. Look around and just take a moment to calm down because the stresses of life are many, we know that.

It can get really overwhelming and sometimes going for a walk really helps. Especially if you're cooped up in one place, your office, the house, all day, and just going through this repetitive routine. You do need to take some time out. Apart from it being a brilliant exercise, obviously, for your whole body, for your mind.

It's actually really good for you to be able to take that time out, just for yourself. I just go to the nursery to pick up one of my children and come back, but I make sure I walk. I can take the car, but I want to walk just because of exercise, because I have time to talk to my child because I have time to take my baby out on a walk as well. As I do this weekly, I try and time myself every time to see if I can get faster and get a little bit more fit. Just those 10 minutes every single day. Which then, in the long term, it really builds up. If you have ever read the book Atomic Habits, it talks about how you can just incorporate little, little habits into your routine.In the long run, how those manifest themselves into like a really big change. We all know that walking helps with having a healthy body, with weight loss effects. If that's something that you're struggling with, boosting your mood and your energy levels and sometimes it really is a matter of you just needing to get some fresh air as well and that can do you a huge amount of benefit.

Practising Gratitude

"So remember Me; I will remember you. And be grateful to Me and do not deny Me."                              Surah Al-Baqarah (2:152)

The third habit that I'm going to tell you that you need to be doing every day is practising gratitude. Now this might sound a bit obscure. But actually, again, because we live such busy, such stressful lives, imagine if every night before going to bed, you just think about three things that you're grateful for.

It can sometimes help put your problems into perspective. When we're quite stressed and when we've got a lot on our plate. One of the things that we tend to do is start thinking about it in the night before we go to bed, right? It's like a little movie reel going off in your head about all these different scenarios, situations, conversations that have happened in the daytime that you're not happy about or you're worried about or you're stressed about.

But by putting things into perspective, so obviously you'll be doing your night prayers, but aside from that, I would really advise you to write down three things that actually you're grateful for. There might be really minor things like just you're grateful for your children, you're grateful for your health, but if you look at, in the bigger picture of things that are causing you problems, that'll help you put things into perspective and also be grateful to dialogue.

So if you can't even write them down because you haven't got time or you haven't got resources, just think about them and name them to yourself. Appreciate that you're grateful for those things. I've also got a journal that you can use that has these elements incorporated into it. Just click the link on the blog homepage. 

Also, by practicing gratitude, you are fostering relations with other people. You tend to enhance your social relationship with other people as well. If it's something that you do on a regular basis, I'm not saying it will take away your problems because it probably won't but at least it'll make them seem smaller than they are, which will help you feel calm which make you go to sleep in a more calmer manner which means you wake up more refreshed which means you're going to be more prepared for the day ahead inshallah. 

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