1The pull towards bread, pasta and biscuits when you are low is not simply greed. Carbohydrate makes it easier for the brain to get hold of the raw material it needs for serotonin, so it gives a real if short lived lift.
Calling it self medication instead of a failure of character changes what you do next. You stop trying to out-discipline the craving and start asking what would meet the same need with a longer tail: eating something before you reach the desperate stage, protein alongside the carbohydrate, getting outside, company. The craving usually softens once the low is being met somewhere else as well.
Islamic evidence
Eat and drink with healthy enjoyment as a reward for what you have done (Quran 52:19). Enjoying food is described as a reward, not as something to be suspicious of.
“‘Eat and drink with healthy enjoyment as a reward for what you have done.’”
Qur'an 52:19
Psychological evidence
Across prospective cohorts, people eating closer to a healthy overall pattern had modestly lower odds of later depression. That finding is about the pattern of eating over time rather than single moments of craving, and it is observational, so other differences between those people could account for part of it. Still, it is a reason to look at the shape of the week rather than judging any one biscuit.
Lassale C, Batty GD, Baghdadli A, Jacka F, Sánchez-Villegas A, Kivimäki M, Akbaraly T. (2019). Molecular psychiatry · doi
Review detail
Why it works. Carbohydrate briefly helps the brain make serotonin, so reaching for it while low is the body finding the nearest lever.
Feedback
none yet2Something that settles a surge of panic within minutes and something that changes how often the surges come are doing two different jobs. A person can need both, and it helps to say which is which.
The fast option is a rescue. It works quickly, it is meant for the worst moments, and its usefulness is measured in that hour. The slower option is maintenance, judged over weeks, and it is the one that shifts the pattern. Confusing the two is where a lot of trouble starts, because the fast one feels far more convincing.
Islamic evidence
Stamp your foot! Here is cool water for you to wash in and drink (Quran 38:42). Job is given immediate relief, and the restoring of everything else comes after it rather than instead of it.
“‘Stamp your foot! Here is cool water for you to wash in and drink,’”
Qur'an 38:42
Psychological evidence
A meta-analysis covering 234 randomised studies and more than 37,000 people found that medication, talking therapy and the two combined all produced substantial improvement in panic, generalised anxiety and social phobia. Comparing them against each other is awkward, because the different kinds of trial use different comparison conditions. The safe reading is that several routes work, not that any one has been shown to beat the rest.
Bandelow B, Reitt M, Röver C, Michaelis S, Görlich Y, Wedekind D. (2015). International clinical psychopharmacology · doi
Review detail
Why it works. Stopping a surge and reducing how often surges happen are separate tasks on separate timescales.
When not to. Rescue medication is a prescriber's decision, so this is for understanding a plan rather than adjusting one.
Feedback
none yet3How well something works in the moment and whether it is right for the long run are two separate questions. Fast relief is extremely convincing, which is exactly why it is worth pausing over.
When something reliably ends the worst feeling within twenty minutes, what your body learns is to reach for it sooner next time. That is not weakness, it is simply how relief teaches. The practical move is to hold both truths at once: this helps, and it is not the whole of the plan.
Islamic evidence
We answered him, removed his suffering, and restored his family to him (Quran 21:84). The relief and the rebuilding are named separately, and both belong to the answer.
“We answered him, removed his suffering, and restored his family to him, along with more like them, as an act of grace from Us and a reminder for all who serve Us”
Qur'an 21:84
Psychological evidence
Studies following people after cognitive behavioural therapy for anxiety found benefits still measurable a year or more after treatment had ended, though the gap between therapy and the comparison conditions narrowed over that time. Slower approaches can leave something behind that keeps working once they stop. The narrowing is worth saying too, since this is not a claim that the effect is permanent.
Eva A.M. van Dis; Suzanne C. van Veen; Muriel A. Hagenaars; Neeltje M. Batelaan; Claudi Bockting; Rinske M. van den Heuvel (2019). JAMA Psychiatry · doi
Review detail
Why it works. Relief that arrives quickly teaches you to reach for it again, whether or not it is what you need.
Feedback
none yet4The speed is why these work and also what they cost. Relief that lands within the half hour is the most teachable kind there is, and what it teaches is to reach for it sooner next time.
How fast a drug comes on drives that learning more than how long it hangs around afterwards. Better to name it out loud with someone than leave them to discover it: this is a rescue, and rescues are for the times you truly cannot get through otherwise, not for the ordinary bad evening. Agreeing in advance what counts as one of those times spares everybody the argument later on.
Islamic evidence
truly it is in the remembrance of God that hearts find peace (Quran 13:28). There is another place to take the surge, and it costs nothing to keep returning there.
“those who have faith and whose hearts find peace in the remembrance of God- truly it is in the remembrance of God that hearts find peace”
Qur'an 13:28
Psychological evidence
In a randomised experiment, a week of carrying out health-related safety behaviours left people more anxious about their health rather than less. Precautionary acts aimed at the body appear to feed the alarm they were meant to settle. That study used checking and precautions rather than medication, so applying it to a fast-acting drug is an argument by extension and not something the trial tested.
Olatunji BO, Etzel EN, Tomarken AJ, Ciesielski BG, Deacon B. (2011). Behaviour research and therapy · doi
Review detail
Why it works. Anything that ends discomfort quickly gets reached for again, and reached for earlier.
When not to. Someone already on one regularly should not read this as a reason to stop by themselves.
Feedback
none yet5There is an older antihistamine used for anxiety that works by making you drowsy and carries no risk of dependence. It suits a rough stretch, and it is a bridge rather than somewhere to settle.
The costs are the ordinary antihistamine ones: dry mouth, constipation, and for older people a genuine risk of confusion and falls, with effects on heart rhythm at higher doses. That is why it fits a bad patch or the gap while something slower gets going. Drowsiness is what is doing the work, which means it dulls the feeling rather than treating what is under it.
Islamic evidence
If one of you is ill, or on a journey, on other days later (Quran 2:184). A hard stretch is given its own arrangement, and the arrangement is understood from the start to be temporary.
“Fast for a specific number of days, but if one of you is ill, or on a journey, on other days later. For those who can fast only with extreme difficulty, there is a way to compensate- feed a needy person. But if anyone does good of his own accord, it is better…”
Qur'an 2:184
Psychological evidence
It has actually been studied. It reduced generalised anxiety symptoms compared with placebo, it also caused more sedation, and the trials supporting it were few and small. So there is real evidence here, just not very much of it, and the benefit and the drowsiness arrived in the same package.
Guaiana G, Barbui C, Cipriani A. (2010). The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · doi
Review detail
Why it works. Being made sleepy can carry you through a hard stretch, but it is not a repair.
When not to. Older adults are the people most likely to be harmed by this kind of medicine, so it needs a prescriber weighing it up rather than a request based on a friend's good report.
Feedback
none yet6When you find yourself reaching for something sweet again, try asking what the reaching is doing for you instead of telling yourself off. Comfort, a small rebellion, a way to stay awake: the answer usually points somewhere useful.
Talk about being good or bad closes the conversation down. Curiosity keeps it open, and it tends to surface the actual job the food is doing, which is often soothing something that has nowhere else to go. Once you know what it is for, you can look for a second way of meeting the same need rather than running on willpower alone. Slower, but it holds.
Islamic evidence
If anyone is forced to eat such things by hunger, rather than desire or excess, he commits no sin: God is most merciful and forgiving (Quran 2:173). Need is told apart from craving without the person in need being condemned, which is the tone to take with yourself here.
“He has only forbidden you carrion, blood, pig’s meat, and animals over which any name other than God’s has been invoked. But if anyone is forced to eat such things by hunger, rather than desire or excess, he commits no sin: God is most merciful and forgiving”
Qur'an 2:173
Psychological evidence
Among 59 women, those under chronic stress showed a distinct pattern connecting comfort eating, abdominal fat and a blunted stress hormone response. It offers a physiological account of why stress steers people towards calorie dense food, so the pull is not simply a matter of resolve. The study was small and observational, so take it as a plausible mechanism rather than a rule about anyone in particular.
Tomiyama AJ, Dallman MF, Epel ES. (2011). Psychoneuroendocrinology · doi
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Why it works. A habit that is doing a job for you will keep coming back until the job gets done some other way.
When not to. If you are managing diabetes, this sits alongside your medical plan rather than in place of it.