Salah, The Chill Pill

In this month's Fob Village group call, we talked about how salah, the five daily prayers, has all the components to help access our prefrontal cortex when we are triggered, alhamdullilah!

Feb 23, 2025

Every month, I find myself eagerly looking forward to our Fob Village monthly group calls. I started doing monthly coaching calls for parents back in September 2024. I have learned so much from my positive discipline parenting training as well as my own studies of books and podcasts. With the help of Allah, I really wanted to create a village of parents (hence the name Fob Village) where we can come together and support one another. And slowly, but surely, that’s how our calls have been evolving. Each month, I facilitate an activity where I coach parents on a new parenting tool that they can put in their toolbox. And then we have discussions throughout the call, and those discussions have been such a gift to all of us, alhamdullilah.

I wanted to share something that came up in this month’s Fob Village call. The topic of this month’s discussion was “Brain in the Palm of Your Hands” where we explored what happens when our brains get triggered. This is based on the work of Daniel J. Siegel, and he uses the hands to illustrate what happens in the brain when we become triggered or when we ‘flip our lid’. There are many YouTube videos that display this concept so if you want to learn more and watch a video about this, please click here.

I was sharing some tips with the members of the Fob Village of what to do when we flip our lids and become triggered. These suggestions are scientifically proven to help a person get access to their prefrontal cortex and I would like to share them with you as well:

Recognize what it feels like physically for you when you flipped your lid
Recognize what it feels like mentally
Take a time out from the situation to calm down
Focus on your breathing
Engage your large muscles
Try to engage your cortex
Notice why you are in survival mode

As we were discussing these points, we made this amazing discovery that all of these points above is linked to salah. Let’s look at the first two points. It is very important to recognize what it feels like to you, personally, when you get triggered. Once you notice and become aware of the sensations in your body and in your mind, you know that you are about to flip your lid. Recognizing these signs are key because they are clues that your body is signaling you so that you can pause and retreat.

In Islam, we know that salah is the ultimate time to retreat from the world. Allah SWT, in His perfect wisdom, instructed us to make salah five times a day. We know that Allah does NOT require our prayers from us. Rather, the five daily prayers is a mercy upon us because it gives us the space and time to take a break from this world. Isn’t that so beautiful? Within our Islamic faith tradition, we already have a built in pause button that we can access. When Rasullulah Sallallahu Alayhi Wassalam (SAW), journeyed to the heavens, which we call the Isra wal Miraj, he met with Allah SWT and that’s when the five daily prayers were given to him. However, Allah initially gave 50 sets of prayers to Rasullulah SAW, which then was brought down to five sets of prayers.

I reflect on the wisdom of 50 sets of prayers. Why would Allah SWT initially give us 50 sets of prayers? That sounds crazy doesn’t it?! But when I think about the amount of times I get triggered or dysregulated throughout the day, the 50 prayers do not seem so extreme to me anymore. Allah is our creator and He knows what we need. And in His ultimate mercy (rahma) and lutf (gentleness) and kindness, He made five daily prayers mandatory upon us because we need it. We absolutely need it. But many of us fail to reap the benefits of prayers because we do not see it as a necessity.

We have been trained to be on the go since childhood that taking a pause, even for prayer, seems like a rushed process. But it is through that pausing and taking a respite from what’s happening on our environment can we begin to ground ourselves into the present. And that’s what the gift of salah is. And perhaps that’s why Allah SWT wanted to give us 50 sets of prayer because He knows how difficult this life is. And He knows we need to pause and slow down if we are to tap into our highest potential.

So where do we go from here? I would like to challenge you to truly tap into the power of salah. With Ramadan right around the corner, I want to challenge myself and you to treat salah as your pause button. Treat salah like the chill pill. Through salah, you can calm down and ‘chill’ as my husband often tells me to do. “Just chill, Tasniya, it’s not a big deal.” Yet my body is definitely not in chill mode! So insha Allah, I intend to use salah as my chill pill and pause button. In addition to the five daily prayers, I want to inculcate the habit of 2 rakahs (units) of optional salah when I feel burdened, triggered, dysregulated, overwhelmed, and exhausted insha Allah.

So here’s what I am going to do and I hope you will join me in doing this.

Recognize what it feels like physically and mentally: When I start to feel dysregulated in my body and my mind starts to race, I will pause to make salah. Think about what happens to your body and mind when you are in a state of angst or stress. Once you are familiar with that, and you notice that happening to you, pause for salah and make the intention to pray 2 rakah of optional prayers.
Then I will go make wudu. Putting fresh cold water on one’s face and body helps to regulate our nervous system. And subhanAllah, wudu does that for us! And going into the bathroom to make wudu is the initiation of the time out from the situation that is causing me stress.
Focus on breathing: The next point is to focus on breathing. Focusing on the breath allows us to come back to the present moment. It helps us to slowly get back to our prefrontal cortex. Breathe slowly and deeply as you make the wudu and notice how each drop of water is cleansing your body in both the physical and spiritual realm. It is the cleansing of the nafs (our lower selves).
Engage your large muscles: Salah is all about engaging your large muscles. Research has shown us that when we are dysregulated doing large muscle activities such as going on walks, doing jumping jacks, stretching, yoga, jogging, etc. are so beneficial to reboot the prefrontal cortex. Salah engages so many of our large muscles and the motions of salah are very similar to the stretching exercises that are recommended to help calm us down. SubhanAllah! Look at our deen! We have a built in physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional regulator of the nerves when we do salah. Allahu Akbar!
Engaging the cortex: Salah is also a beautiful way to engage the cortex. Research tells us that once we have calmed down a bit, we should try to do mental math, spelling exercises, listing facts, etc, to help with the rebooting process. Think about the duas, dhikr, surahs that we recite in salah from memory. Salah requires us to engage our cortex because the kalam of Allah is stored in our cortex and that’s what is recommended to help us become centered. Allahu Akbar!
Notice why you are in survival mode: Once we have calmed down, the last point is to notice why we are in survival mode. This reminds me of dua. Once we are back in our rational mind, making dua to Allah and reflecting on our triggers help us to become aware of our patterns, thoughts, and behaviors. This is an opportunity to seek Allah’s help and guidance after our prayers so that we can be more mindful and open to retreating back to Allah’s embrace in our salah when we get triggered.

So I leave you with this as a Ramadan challenge because Ramadan is the time when we will likely become more agitated, triggered, stressed, or upset with our children. I want to encourage and gently push you to consider praying 2 rakahs of optional prayer when you feel stressed out, whether it’s at home or at work and make the intention to build this new habit in your life. If we can make salah our chill pill and our pause button, insha Allah, it will transform our lives in the most beautiful ways.

Lastly, I want to leave you a realization from one of the members of Fob Village. She said something so profound that I feel the need to share with you all. I pray that she and the members of our Fob Village community get the blessings and duas from any good that comes from this blog post because what I am writing is what was shared by my sisters. So please keep them in your duas.

Often times it is hard for us to take a time out when we are stressed, especially when we have young children who need us and we are the primary caretakers. One of our sisters shared the realization that salah is the ONLY time that her children do not disturb her. They know that when she is praying, she is not available because she is with Allah. And they give her that space and time to do her prayers. When she mentioned that, it was a huge aha moment for all of us! I felt like almost a lightbulb went off with that realization that salah is the time out space for many mothers. It is the ONLY time that children give us the time to ourselves. Now of course if you have young infants and toddlers, that is a different matter. But for the most part, salah is that time out for us parents. SubhanAllah! Imagine if our children not only see us do our daily prayers, but also see that we make extra salah when we feel agitated and stressed. What a beautiful example we will be setting for them insha Allah!

Therefore, I encourage you to take on this challenge this Ramadan. Make salah your safe space, pause button, chill pill, positive time out space, or whatever you want to call it! But importantly, make salah your time out space to get away from the triggers of this physical realm and flee into the infinite bliss of the eternal realm, insha Allah! Leave a comment below to let me know if you are IN for the Ramadan Salah Chill Challenge insha Allah!!

Fountain of Barakah

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