Health and Spiritual Benefits of Fasting you must know
Everyone has heard about health and spiritual benefits of fasting, but only few of them know about it. Fasting means a person restricting himself from food and drinks for a certain period of time. It can be of various types where the person can totally restrict himself from all foods or from specific food and drinks. The period of fasting ranges from a few hours to a few days. People are fasting from a long period of time. However, fasting was considered as the religious thing, but, now it has been found out that fasting has health benefits too. There are many health and spiritual benefits of fasting, but most of the people are not aware about these benefits. No need to worry as in this post, we will be sharing all health and spiritual benefits of fasting.
Health benefits of Fasting:
All the health benefits mentioned below are genuine and proper research has been done to test them out. These health benefits of fasting are researched on the people who fasted for in between 20 hours to 36 hours.
- Fasting reduces the risk of heart diseases, diabetes and even cancer.
- It improves insulin sensitivity which is very much beneficial for the body.
- Fasting helps in improving DNA damages which can cause cancer. It also reduces oxidative stress and inflammation in cells.
- It is also seen that fating is the reason which slows down the little clocks that tick inside mitochondria. This slowing down triggers senescence which means youthful organs. So, fasting does prevents ageing and you can live longer If you do regular fasting.
- Fasting also detoxifies the body. It is due to the fact that during fasting a person remains without food and thus body enters into the mode of ketosis. Ketosis is a body condition which occurs when the body runs out of carbohydrate and during this process fat of the body is burned for providing energy. Since all the toxic also stays with the fat, it also gets burned with fats. Thus, in this way fating helps in cleansing the body.
- It prevents arthritis, colitis, depression and provides metabolic benefits.
- Fasting also helps during cholesterol and blood sugar level test. Tests after fasting shows more accurate baseline control.
- Fasting provides the much needed rest to the digestive system. It offers greater mental clarity and prevents skin diseases like psoriasis and eczema
These were few health benefits of fasting but as we said there are many spiritual benefits of Fasting too. It is due to these health and spiritual benefits of fasting that now more and more people do regular fasting.
Spiritual Benefits of Fasting:
- According to Bible, Fasting and praying go hand in hand. As per Matthew 9:15, “The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.”, which indicates that Jesus wants it followers to fast. It shows that fasting has the ability to starve sin.
- In Islam, there is whole month dedicated for fasting known as Ramadan. Muslims observes fast for a complete month and it is considered that it is the purest time of the year.
- Fasting helps subject our bodies to our spirit. (I Cor 9:27). Fasting is disciplining the body, mind, and spirit. (Prov. 25:28). Fasting is subordinating our flesh-desires to our spirit-desires. (Gal 5:17).Fasting helps set the priorities in our lives. (Mt 6:33)
Fasting is longing after God. (Ps 63:1-2). These all points are mentioned in the Bible thus showing the spiritual significance of fasting. - As per Hindu Mythology, Fasting is done to make Gods happy. Hindus observes a fast of nine days during the festival of Navratra. As per mythology, fasting cleans your soul and helps you to make a better person.
With all those health and spiritual benefits of Fasting, you must be thinking of doing it but there are few things which you need to know.
- If you are pregnant, underweight, recovering from surgery or if you are diabetic, then you should refrain yourself from fasting. Even religious fasting obligations exempt you from fasting if you are medically not fit.
- Do not make it long. 20 hours fasting is considered as the best fasting while longer fasting of more than 36 hours is not considered medically safe.
- If you are planning to lose weight than you must not think of fasting. It should be noted that fasting do not help in losing weight. The reason behind it is that fasting slows down the metabolic rate and you will realize that you have an increased appetite after fasting.
- Avoid rigorous exercise and workout during fasting.
- Keep drinking fluids at the regular intervals to prevent yourself from dehydration.
Fasting not only provides you the inner peace but also makes you healthy. It is due to the health and spiritual benefits of fasting that we advise you for regular fasting of one day a week.
