Prayer and fasting together comprise a forgotten discipline. When was the last time you heard a priest recommend the pair? Christ of course spoke of this in the context of exorcism: “This kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting” (Matthew 17:21). In the early Church, fasting was not treated as an odd religious exercise reserved for hermits or saints. Ordinary believers practiced it. Christ did not say if you fast but when you fast “do not look somber” (Matthew 6:16–17). For centuries, fasting was part of the rhythm of religious life. Men and women denied themselves food not merely to master the body but to quiet appetite, sharpen attention, awaken gratitude, and strengthen inner discipline. Hunger became a teacher. The empty stomach reminded that man does not live by bread alone.

Turning to the health benefits of fasting, ponder this: During discussion with your doctor about diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, or depression, did he ever suggest a multi-day water fast under medical supervision? After generations of abundance and excess, researchers have been rediscovering health benefits in what ancient believers practiced. They are finding profound biological changes after several days without food. During extended fasting, insulin levels fall, inflammation markers decline, damaged cellular material begins breaking down through autophagy, and the body shifts into deep metabolic repair. Many people experience lower blood pressure, improved insulin sensitivity, and significant weight loss. Some studies suggest that after roughly three days, the body enters a distinctly different metabolic state in which survival mechanisms long buried beneath constant eating begin to awaken.

A recent report summarized findings showing that major systemic changes emerge after about 72 hours without food. Scientists observed shifts in proteins associated with inflammation, metabolism, and cellular stress responses. What older generations once called cleansing is now being examined through the language of biochemistry and molecular repair. Yet modern society still treats fasting as fringe behavior.

We live surrounded by constant consumption. Snacks sit within arm’s reach at gas stations, offices, airports, waiting rooms, and checkout counters. Advertising urges us to satisfy every craving immediately. Many people now treat hunger as an emergency rather than a signal. Some cannot imagine voluntarily enduring even a single day without food. This is precisely where fasting supplies discipline. A man who quietly endures hunger without panic learns something about mastery over himself. The body protests. The mind bargains. Smells grow sharper. Thoughts slow. Habits reveal themselves. Emotional eating, boredom eating, anxious eating — all begin stepping out from the shadows where routine normally hides them.

I know this struggle firsthand. In my youth, I undertook a 21-day fast devoted to prayer. Hunger largely vanished after the third day. A kind of innate contemplation quieted mental turbulence. Without food constantly drawing blood and energy toward digestion, my body grew quieter, and I ascended into deeper prayer. By the nineteenth day, however, I entered what fasting manuals sometimes call the “crisis.” My body felt unbearably heavy, as though lead boots were strapped to my feet. Then, near the twenty-first day, the sensation suddenly reversed. It felt as though those boots had fallen away. My mind grew unusually clear. My body felt light, calm, and almost buoyant. That experience left a permanent impression on me. Since then, periodic fasting has never seemed unnatural but deeply restorative — a reminder that the body and soul were never meant to live in constant consumption. Prayer deepens this. Without prayer, fasting can become vanity, dieting, or mere bodily punishment. Without fasting, prayer can remain comfortable and abstract. Together they become an act of focused intention — a deliberate interruption of appetite, noise, distraction, and compulsion.

None of this means fasting is easy or universally safe. Extended fasting should be approached carefully, especially by diabetics, heart patients, the elderly, or those taking medications. Medical supervision is important. Wisdom matters more than fanaticism.

Still, the larger question remains: Why did moderns abandon a practice that both Scripture and emerging science endorse? Part of the answer may lie in the nature of modern culture. A civilization built on endless appetite will naturally distrust any practice that teaches restraint. Yet nearly every enduring spiritual tradition understood that unchecked desire eventually enslaves the soul as surely as disease weakens the body.

Fasting and prayer will not remove every suffering. But together they may restore what modern life steadily erodes: clarity, humility, discipline, gratitude. In an age drowning in excess, even a day of voluntary hunger can feel almost revolutionary.

For more on the science behind fasting, see here.