7 Lesser-Known Alexa Commands for Better Sleep

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Getting a good night’s sleep can be difficult. Not only do you have to be in the right headspace to finally fall asleep, but for some it can be difficult to stay asleep for a full night and feel rested in the morning. For those who own an Alexa device, there are several ways you can use this tool to your advantage to help you get some rest. However, you’ll still want to make a cup of chamomile tea and step away from your computer and smartphone while you get ready for bed.

We’ve looked at the best techniques, available through Alexa, that you can use the next time you try to fall asleep. These range from the device telling you a helpful bedtime story to guiding you into peaceful meditation, as you gradually find peace and fall asleep after a long, tiring day. These are eight lesser-known Alexa commands you can use for a better night’s sleep.

For those who like to hear a structured story, asking Alexa to tell them a story is a good way to help them fall asleep. You can add the Storytime skill to your Alexa, and in the future, Alexa will be able to select a story for you, with various sound effects and voices, giving you a complete story while you try to fall asleep. These stories are one of Alexa’s fun Easter eggs.

Alexa can read over 100 news stories. Many are aimed at children, but Alexa can also play your audiobooks through your Audible account or from your Kindle. If there are stories you’d like to read in your Featured Library, Alexa can browse them instead of reading a random news story. Both are optional choices to help you fall asleep, especially if Alexa is reading back to you a story you’ve already finished.

Rather than listening to a story, you can follow a guided meditation. Guided meditations you can use through Alexa provide you with step-by-step instructions on breathing, how to relax your mind, and finding an appropriate focal point.

The process may begin with quiet music or white noise, while someone speaks overhead to guide you through the steps of relaxing your body, calming your mind, and breathing rhythmically. The process is meant to be calming and can often lead you to a pleasant sleep.

Some of the recommended meditations include white noise meditation, mindfulness, nature meditation, and mindfulness meditation, to name a few. Depending on your choice, you can give Alexa additional instructions, such as setting how long you want the meditation to last before the sound stops. Meditations generally last five to ten minutes.

For those who need background noise that doesn’t attract too much attention, there is white noise. Alexa can provide you with a series of white noise effects that act as sleep sounds in the background, helping to soothe and distract you from worrying about the work day ahead or any other stresses you might be feeling.

You can try using a variety of different Alexa skills, such as Sleep Jar, Sleep and Relaxation Sounds, or White Noise. These are all available tools that you can download and then use with your Alexa device. You can choose one to call your “sleep sounds” or choose a particular effect each time, asking “Alexa, turn on thunderstorms from Sleep Jar” to make it work. From there, the device starts playing the white noise for as long as you want, or you can set a timer so that it turns off after a little while.

A lesser-known feature of Alexa devices like the Echo is the ability to turn them into a night light. By adding a Night Light skill to the gadget, this allows for soft lighting for those who prefer not to sleep in complete darkness. Others use these lights if they need to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. This useful feature allows them to see enough to cross a hallway without needing to turn on a much bigger, brighter light, which could make it difficult to return to sleep.

You can strategically place your Echo somewhere in your home to make it easier to see where you’re going, such as opposite your bathroom door, somewhere in your kitchen, or near a corner of your bedroom leading to the hallway. Remember to test it several times before trying to use it in the middle of the night.

Alexa can set a sleep timer to help you slowly fall asleep. When the timer is up, your lights will be turned off completely and anything Alexa might have been playing will also be turned off. It’s a nice way to fall asleep, without forcing you to think about lights or music as you go to sleep, and you can use Alexa with any of these nine smart lights for your bedroom.

You need to do little setup beforehand, as the command “Alexa, set my sleep timer to one hour” is a standard phrase. However, if you want it to do more, you can add to this sentence and say, “Alexa, set my sleep timer for an hour with my bedroom light” or “with my sleep sounds.” This way, the sleep timer is now linked to the lights in your room or the white noise you use to fall asleep. Just be sure to pronounce the names of specific lights you have in your room based on what you have saved in your smartphone.

Creating a routine so that Alexa reminds you in advance to go to bed could be an effective method for getting to bed much earlier. You can use these reminders to encourage yourself to start winding down in the evening before you begin your nighttime routine and get ready for bed. It can also prevent you from indulging in late-night treats, which experts advise avoiding if you want a good night’s sleep.

You can ask Alexa to set a reminder for a set time each weeknight, and the reminder will go off at that preset time, reminding you to get ready for bed. You can even set a reminder an hour before you get ready, another fifteen minutes before, and the last one when you want to start brushing your teeth and turn off everything in the house. These gradual reminders are a good way to start a bedtime schedule, so that eventually you no longer need them and start to feel tired and ready to sleep at the appropriate time.

You can also create a routine with Alexa that you start when you’re getting ready for bed, so the device helps you lock your house and prepare your bedroom for bed. Routines are groups of grouped custom actions that you create in the Alexa app. A command, such as “Alexa, it’s time to go to bed,” can trigger a series of tasks for Alexa to complete. This is a handy feature that can be widely used to automate many processes in a smart home.

When you say your command phrase, the program can cycle through the list you created, turn off connected smart lights, activate smart locks, and more. Because Alexa is connected and able to interact with a variety of smart devices, she can also manage their bedtime, letting you head to the bathroom and start brushing your teeth. The less you have to do to get to bed, the easier it will be to fall asleep.