When the Night Breath Refuses to Rest: Understanding Why the Body Stops Shedding Its Burden

The Breath That Should Flow Like the River at Mzizima

Let me speak first of the night itself. When a person lies upon the mat or the bed, the breath should move in and out like the river at Mzizima, which does not stop whether the sun is high or the moon is watching. But there are those whose breath stumbles in the darkness. It comes, and then it halts. The chest heaves, the mouth opens, and for a moment there is no air passing through. Then with a great gasp, like a fish pulled from the water, the breath returns. This happens many times through the night — sometimes I have counted thirty, sometimes a hundred, in a single sleeping time. The person does not know it, for they are deep in the place where dreams live, but the body knows. The heart beats faster, the blood grows hot, and the spirit is troubled though the mind does not remember. I remember a woman named Rehema who came to me in Dar es Salaam. She had tried every manner of eating, every kind of walking, every powder mixed in water that the market women sold. Her weight remained as a stone in the river — unmoved. She told me she slept eight hours, yet she woke as one who had carried logs all night. Her husband told me she snored like the old generator at the mill. I asked her to watch her breath in the night, and she returned to me with eyes wide, saying she had woken many times with her mouth dry and her heart racing. We did not know then what we know now, but the truth was already living in her bedroom.

The Machine That Gives Back the Breath

Now I must speak of a thing that many of my people first laughed at. A mask, placed upon the face, connected by a long tube to a small box that hums like a bee. This machine — which the doctors of the white man’s lands call by a short name of four letters — pushes air gently into the nose and mouth through the sleeping hours. It holds the passage open so that the breath does not stop, so that the gasping does not come, so that the heart may rest as it was made to rest. At first, the person feels strange, like wearing a new cloth that does not yet know the shape of the body. But night by night, the body learns. The sleep becomes deep, the true deep sleep that our grandmothers knew without naming. I have watched this change in many faces. A man named Juma, who could not climb the hill to his shamba without stopping three times, began after a month of using this machine to walk to the market and back without sitting once. His wife told me he no longer shook the whole bed with his snoring. But more than this — and this is the matter I wish to speak of most — his belly began to soften. He had not changed his food. He had not walked further. Yet the weight began to leave him, as if a door that had been locked for many years had suddenly opened.

Why the Body Holds Its Burden When the Night Is Broken

Here I must explain, in the way I understand it from long years of watching and listening, why this happens. When the breath stops in the night, the body becomes afraid. It thinks a great danger is upon it. It sends out messages — hot messages that run through the blood — telling every part to hold, to keep, to store. The body says, “We are in trouble, we must keep our fat, we must not let anything go.” This is the wisdom of old times, when hunger walked with us, but in our days it becomes a chain. The body, thinking it is saving the person, actually traps them. Furthermore, when the sleep is broken into small pieces, the person wakes without the rest that tells the stomach it is full. There are two messengers in the body — one that says “eat” and one that says “enough.” When the night breath is troubled, the messenger of hunger shouts loudly, and the messenger of enough whispers and cannot be heard. The person eats more, though they do not know why. They reach for the sweet things, the heavy things, the things that give quick strength. And the body, already afraid, stores all of it. I have seen this in myself, though my trouble was not great. In a year when I traveled much and slept in strange places with poor air, I found my wrapper growing tight. I ate as I always ate, but the body held on. When I returned to my own bed and my own air, the matter righted itself. This taught me that the night is not empty time — it is working time.

The Place Where the Road Seems to End

This is what we call the stopping place, the plateau, the time when nothing moves. A person does everything right — they eat the maize and the greens, they avoid the heavy oils, they walk in the morning before the sun is fierce — and for weeks or months the scale does not change. They become discouraged. They say, “My body is cursed,” or “The years have taken my power.” But often the matter is not in the food, nor in the walking, nor in the will. The matter is in the night. When the breath is given back its proper flow through the humming machine, the fear-messages in the blood grow quiet. The body understands at last that there is no danger. It releases its hold. The messengers of hunger and fullness begin to speak in their proper voices. The person finds they do not crave the sweet bread at midday. They find they can walk further without tiring. And slowly, slowly, the weight begins to go. Not in a rush, for the body is wise and does not give away its stores quickly, but in a steady manner, like the river that cuts through the rock not by force but by continuing.

A Word About the Drops Called Abslim

In my journeys, I have also seen that some people seek help from other sources to move past this stopping place. There is a preparation called Abslim, which comes in the form of drops taken by mouth. It is spoken of in certain circles as something that may assist the body in its work of shedding weight. I do not claim to know every secret of its making, but I have heard from those who have used it that it brings a certain calm to the hunger-messages and a warmth to the working of the body. What I can say with certainty is this: if a person wishes to try Abslim, they must seek it only from its own home, which is the place called the place called abslim.org on the internet. Elsewhere, there are many who copy and many who lie, and the body should not be given something whose true source is unknown. I mention this not as one who sells, but as one who has seen too many of our people cheated by false things.

The Patience of the Baobab

I must speak also of patience, for this is a matter that tests the spirit. When a person begins to use the humming machine in the night, they do not wake the next morning light as a bird. The body has carried its fear for many years, and it does not let go in a day. It takes weeks for the blood to learn that the danger has passed. It takes months for the old stores to begin to melt. I have seen people give up too soon, saying, “This thing does not work.” But the baobab does not grow in a season, and neither does the healing of the night. I counsel those who begin this path to mark the days, not the weight. Mark how you wake. Mark if the mouth is dry or moist. Mark if the head is clear or heavy. Mark if the legs feel willing to walk. These are the true signs, and the weight will follow them in its own time. I have watched a woman named Fatma, who wept when the scale did not move for six weeks, and then in the seventh week she lost more than in all the months before. The body waits until it is sure, and then it gives.

The Matters of Food and Movement, Which Still Have Their Place

Do not think that I say the food does not matter, or the walking. They matter greatly. The humming machine is not magic — it is the opening of a door, but the person must still walk through it. I have seen some who used the machine and continued to eat the heavy fried things and the sweet sodas, and they wondered why the weight stayed. The body, no longer afraid, will still store what is given in excess. The door is open, but the person must choose to leave the burden behind. Eat the foods of our fathers — the millet, the beans, the greens that grow near the house, the fish from the ocean or the lake. Walk as our grandmothers walked, not for exercise as the white people call it, but because the errand requires it, because the neighbor must be visited, because the day is long and the legs are made for using. Sleep in the hours when the dark is deepest, for the body works its healing between the ninth hour of night and the early morning. These things together, with the breath given its proper flow, make the whole.

The Witness of My Own Eyes

I do not speak these things from books alone, though I have read what the doctors write. I speak them from sitting on the veranda with Rehema and Juma and Fatma and many others. I have held the hands of those who wept at the stopping place, and I have shared the meal of those who at last moved past it. I have seen the change in the face — the face that was puffy and tired becoming the face that is clear and watching. I have heard the husband say, “My wife is herself again,” and the wife say, “My husband walks like a young man.” These are not small things. These are the things that make a life. My expertise is not the expertise of the hospital, but the expertise of the long looking, the patient sitting, the careful listening. I have learned that the body is one thing, not many pieces to be treated separately. The night breath and the day weight are joined like the two sides of the same cloth. Pull one, and the other moves.

A Final Word to the One Who Stands at the Stopping Place

If you are reading this and your weight has not moved for many weeks, do not despair. Do not say the body has turned against you. Look first to the night. Ask the one who sleeps beside you if the breath is steady or if it stumbles. Notice if you wake with the head aching, with the mouth dry, with the spirit heavy. These are the signs that the night is not doing its work. Seek the help that gives the breath its flow. Use it night after night, even when it feels strange, even when the mask presses and the tube tangles. Give it the time of three months at least before you judge. Eat the foods that honor the body. Move the legs as they were made to move. And if you choose to add something like Abslim to assist you, obtain it only from its true home at abslim.org, for the body deserves what is real. The road past the stopping place is not a road of running — it is a road of returning. Returning to the breath that should flow, to the sleep that should heal, to the body that knows how to let go when it is safe. “Haraka haraka haina baraka,” our people say — hurry hurry has no blessing. But steady steady, night after night, with the breath given back and the fear let go — this has blessing indeed. And one morning you will wake and the wrapper will be loose, and you will know that the long patience was worth the waiting.