This iPhone feature helps me get more quality sleep

As someone who has struggled with sleep all my life, I would do anything to get more Z. I’ve read every Expert tips I’ve tried countless products, but this is the only technique that has truly helped me improve High quality sleep It didn’t require any more time, effort, or money because it was right there on my iPhone.

For more than five years, I’ve been able to get better sleep thanks to a hidden feature on my iPhone. This is what I discovered.

The hidden iPhone feature that puts me to sleep

You can use iPhone Background sounds Play ambient sound clips when you want to rest or focus. These include ocean (my favorite), rain, stream, night, fire, balanced noise, bright noise, and dark noise. It’s basically built-in White noise machine.

You can enable background sounds to play continuously, even when other media is playing, and adjust the volume accordingly. You can also set up a feature that allows you to easily turn it off by locking your iPhone. However, I have never tried this, as I only play background sounds at night while sleeping.

How to play background sounds

To add background sounds to your iPhone’s Control Center for easy access, make sure you have iOS 15 or later. You can also add it to iPadOS 15 or later. Swipe down from the top-right corner of your screen. Press the “+” icon at the top left and then “Add Control” at the bottom. Scroll down to the Hearing Accessibility section and click Background Sounds. You can also search for it in the top bar.

Once you add background sounds, they will be available in your Control Center. To access the sounds, simply press and hold the background sounds icon with three notes, choose the sound and adjust the volume. Ocean sound is a long-time favorite of mine, as I love its constant volume and repetitive waves.

After you open Background Sounds in your Control Center, you can also tap Background Sounds Settings at the bottom of the screen. Here, you can enable audio playback continuously or only when other media is playing on your iPhone. You can also turn off background sounds when your phone is locked.

One problem I have is with background sounds

Although I love the background sounds and have been using them every night for the past five years, I did notice one problem. I used to set it so that when my phone was on sleep mode, only certain people could contact me in case of an emergency. However, this feature did not work. Even when I would receive a scam call in the middle of the night, my soundscape would stop playing and wake me up. Then I had to wait for the caller to leave a voicemail or hang up before I could play the soundscape again, which made it difficult to fall back asleep.

I went through a phase where scam calls disrupted my sleep almost every night. So, I set my iPhone to silence all calls during sleep mode and asked my emergency contacts to call my partner instead — he’s up early anyway, so it worked.

The best part: It’s travel-friendly

I use background sounds every night to drown out outside noise, but they have become especially useful when I travel and can’t control the sounds around me as much. I’ve used this feature at every hotel and friend’s house I’ve stayed at over the past few years to get rid of noisy neighbors, loud music, barking dogs, cars driving by, chirping birds, and even particularly loud streetlights. I imagine it would also be great on a plane, train or boat (full sensory experience of ocean sounds).

Best of all, everything works fine on my phone, which means I don’t have to buy a phone White noise machine Or rely on a hotel or host to get one. It’s basically like having a little white noise machine in your pocket at all times — because who knows when or where you’ll want to transport yourself to the cozy fireside or chattering creek to catch some extra Zs?