As-salaam Aleikum,
Ya ayyuha allatheena amanoo kutiba AAalaykumu alssiyamu kama kutiba AAala allatheena min qablikum laAAallakum tattaqoona
O ye who believe! Fasting is prescribed to you as it was prescribed to those before you, that ye may (learn) self-restraint,- ( Al Baqarah 2:183)
The above ayat is the core foundation for the Holy Month of Ramadhan. It is what we know to be the "raison-d-etre" for the fasting that is prescribed for us during the Holy Month of Ramadhan. A month where we are to restrain ourselves while developing good habits for our life.
Upon closer analysis however, an interesting detail comes up. This pertains to the DURATION of the fasting activity rather than the fasting itself. Fasting has been prescribed for a period of a month so depending on conditions etc, anything from 28 to 30 days for the Islamic Lunar Calender.
It is now emerging that 30 days is a significant duration for the purposes of of sinking in a new habit. Dictionary.com defines habit as " an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary".. So important is this phenomenon of 30 days as a personal growth tools n terms of habits, that it is termed the "30 day Principle".
The "30 day Principle" simply entails practicing a new habit continously for 30 days. The outcome is that the new habit then becomes engrained in our psyche and we develop unconcious competence for that new skill or habit. Simply put, the new skill becomes involuntary to us and hence becomes... a habit.
This is borne out by numerous applications of the concept. A common example is the 30-day trial period that software sellers use for their products for example. A more credulous and scientific evidence of the concept is an experiment carried out by NASA. They gave astronauts convex lenses ( the outcome was that the astronauts then saw upside down images as opposed to the normal upright ones ) to see with -they expected a number of reactions: nausea,irritability. What they got was something else. Eventually, the astronauts' brains flipped the upside down images to their normal upright position. The unconcious mind somehow managed to re-train the brain to view the images in their proper perspective.
Similar procedures were undertaken at varying number of days and it turned out that any interuption ( the astronauts removing the convex lenses ) before 25 days meant that the astronauts had to start the procedure again continously for 30 days in order the for unconcious mind to "adjust" the upside down stimulus of the images received by the eye.
From this we can see that any new habit or skill has to be sustained for 30 days (certainly not for a period less than 25 days ) for the "new" representation to become accepted in the unconcious mind and hence become an almost involuntary habit.
So we see that in His wisdom Allah (swt) towards making us better human beings, He not only prescribed fasting but prescribed fasting in a time period that has been scientifically proven to be the appropriate time period for engraining new habits ( if practiced without interruptions).
It even becomes more startling when you relate this to the human psyche. We're all aware that we dread making permanent changes...we're more amenable to applying things when we feel that it is for a temporary period. This is because any perceived discomfort of the "new" skill/habit/change is viewed as being temporary and so long as you have a duration ie 30 days, you can always envision your "freedom" at the end of it. So,in reality, the temporary perception is actually the foundation for forming lifelong habits.
The import of all of this for you : for the coming Ramadhan, once you have established what your goals are in the major areas of Ibadah/knowledge - you need to keep them up and practice them consistently and without interruptions for the whole month . At the end of the month , they become second nature to you.
At that point, you will be applying the skills/knowledge involuntary ,with the promise of earthly benefits but more importantly for the benefits of the hereafter.