Ramadan Kareem everyone!

So Ramadan was announced last night, as expected.

I was at a friend's majlis at the time so with the announcement people were changing the evening routine:

-- staying later. The fajr prayer is at a little after 3am so many of the guys decided to stay up late rather than go to bed since they had to get up at 3am anyway. I left my friend's place at 1:30am and there were still people there.

-- hydrate. People were drinking a lot of water in preparation for the fast as it will be 15+ hours without drinking anything. My friend had lots of bottled water available in anticipation of Ramadan being called.

-- share tips on how to deal with caffeine withdrawal. Again because 15+ hours of no food and liquids, including coffee. Some of them prepared ahead of time by shifting their coffee drinking to the evenings. Others recommended taking two Panadol with the Sohour meal to prevent headaches during the day. I had prepared by slowly weaning myself off caffeine over the last two weeks so by yesterday I was only drinking decaf coffee, I found it odd most people don't do something like that. Caffeine headaches are horrible! I hope I'll be fine today.


With today being the weekend it's actually a bigger challenge for me. On a weekday you have work to distract you but on a weekend it's more difficult to distract yourself. It's hot out (40+ degrees and you can't drink water), stores are closed, and you can't go exercise/play sports/go to a gym because you can't drink anything. So I'm sitting at home, doing some chores and using the computer, trying not to think about food.

My sleep schedule now needs to adjust as well. During Ramadan I stay up later, sleep less in the evening, then have a long nap in the afternoon. Last night I slept all the way through so now I don't want to nap. I'll need to stay up late tonight to get on track.

3 hours to go. I'm already thirsty and hungry. That's okay, the first couple of days were always the hardest.