By Abdullahi jamaa
The brain is like an engine, if you don’t use it effectively it gets cogged and confused. The longer it stays in this unused state the more inefficient it becomes.
Your comprehension, ability to solve problems and understanding of issues will all soon hit a snag if you don’t make efforts to reboot this important organ of your body.
How often do you forget to call back people as promised, how often do you forget to perform an important task, how often do you forget your phone in restaurants and other places. If you do forget things easily, then you have a problem of poor memory. By the way we all suffer from this.
Forgetfulness is part of humanity and you should not feel compunction about it. Forgetfulness is something that differs from person to person; some may be more forgetful than others. The good news is that we can improve our memory once we start using our brain significantly.
Here is how to deal with forgetfulness
Avoid sins
The first step to realising the power of your brain is to stop sinning. A dirty mind will give you more trash than treasure.Sins affect our mental health and distort our vision for life. Sinning destroys our thinking capacity and affects our alertness to issues.
The brain is destroyed by sinful behaviours like adultery, fornication, corruption, drug abuse and backbiting. That is why the more sinful we are the more we forget things easily because our brain and body is full of dirt.
Imam Shaffi said: “I complained to (my shaykh) Wakee about my bad memory, and he taught me that I should keep away from sin. He said that knowledge of Allah is light, and the light of Allah is not given to the sinner”
Glorify Allah
The immense satisfaction we achieve through attestation and glorification of Allah is indeed the best way to enjoy a perfect mental and physical health.
Always remember Allah, may He be glorified, by reciting dhikr, tasbeeh (saying Subhan Allaah), tahmeed (Al-hamdu Lillaah), tahleel (Laa ilaaha ill-Allaah) and takbeer (Allaahu akbar).
Remembrance softens the heart, emboldens the body and sharpens the mind. Through consistent glorification, the blood veins relax, the body cools and the brain cells are activated to pick up and preserve knowledge.
Tawakul (true reliance)
Life is too short to achieve all your ambitions in this world. Worry overwhelms your mind. The more things are scattered on your table the more forgetful and confused you get to be.
Worrying about the future and having too much consternations about issues far beyond your control will exacerbate your inability to retain information in your memory. You may get information overload that can shut down your thoughts for good.
Dealing with a lot of issues or trying to achieve multiple worldly gains simultaneously without a proper schedule is a sure way to make your mind disturbed. Haphazard way of handling affairs translates into psychological confusion.
Of course, during these contemporary days we are faced with a lot of challenges: family, work and social issues that devastate our psychological stability. We tend to process a lot of contrasting issues at the back of our minds and these issues affect the power and ability to retain valuable information.
Slowdown to count your blessings. Work hard but do not transgress with rapacity, ignorance and greed. Remember with all your efforts you can only achieve what has been decreed.
Imam Ghazali said: “What is destined will reach you, even if be beneath two mountains. What is not destined will not reach you, even if it be between your two lips.”
Avoid empty talks
Part of Islam is leaving that which doesn’t concern you. Wasting time with bad friends, making silly stories, watching vices and hearing evil things like music erodes your memory and affects how your mind processes information. The more dirt you process in your mind, the more you sank into oblivion.
Use your brain
When confronted with real-life issues, people often follow shortcuts or emulate others, we rarely solve our problems we rely on others. Our mental capacity is often under exploited because we refuse to think out of the box.
Most of our life we deal with trivial issues hampering our success and progress in life and it is because we tend to use our brain insignificantly. We must make use of our God-given capacity to think and solve issues since we have a powerful machine with millions of cells that process data more than quantum computers.
Start using this powerful machine in your head to solve issues and problems. Engage in critical thinking and seeks answers. Study and read a lot to stimulate your brain for knowledge and skills development.
Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. When a reporter asked, “How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?” Edison replied, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.” “Great success is built on failure, frustration, even catastrophe.”
