These Built-In iPhone Features Can Help You Sleep

You already know the health benefits of a good night’s sleep. But sometimes, despite your best efforts, you just can’t seem to drift off to dreamland. If rolling over and counting sheep isn’t enough, experts say, there’s another way to sleep better: listening to relaxing music or nature sounds.

A study from the University of New South Wales reports that music with slow notes promotes faster sleep and improves sleep quality at the same time. Meanwhile, a study published in the journal Urban Forestry & Urban Greening observed that participants who listened to a mix of valley water and forest birds were more relaxed, with their heart rates lower than when they heard road traffic sounds.

So if you’ve ever needed help falling asleep, try putting on some soft music or nature sounds. However, you won’t need to search Spotify or YouTube. If you own an iPhone, these natural sleep aids are actually built into the device. Ambient Music plays gentle music for you, while Background Sounds lets you play different types of nature sounds, from rain on a roof to crackling fire. Here’s how to enable these features.

Background sounds on your iPhone can be accessed from the Settings app or your Control Center. In the Settings app, do the following:

1. Go to Accessibility.
2. Under Hearing, choose Audio & Visual.
3. Tap Background sounds.
4. Turn on background sounds.
5. Select Sound.
6. Choose your favorite sound from the list. You will hear a preview of the sound when you press it.
7. Press the back button.
8. Adjust the volume to your liking.
9. (Optional) To automatically turn off background sounds at a certain time, go to Stop sounds with a timer. Activate the timer and select a specific time or set period during which the sound will stop.
10. (Optional) To customize the Background Sounds profile, go to Equalizer. Turn on the EQ and play with the tone and balance until you find the most comfortable output.

If you prefer not to go into Settings to enable background sounds, you can simply customize your iPhone’s Control Center and add it as a control. Just look for background sounds (three-note icon) in the Hearing Accessibility section. When you tap this icon in Control Center, the last sound you selected will automatically play. To change it, touch and hold the command, tap Sound and choose a new one. When you long press the control, you can also see a volume slider to adjust the volume whenever you need it.

If you prefer to listen to ambient music rather than a specific background sound, you can launch the Sleep Ambient Music playlist by going to your home screen. However, you need to customize your iPhone’s home screen first, because ambient music is not available there by default. Here’s how to do it:

1. Tap and hold on any empty space on the Home screen.
2. Tap Edit in the upper left corner.
3. Go to Add Widget.
4. Tap Ambient music.
5. Select the size of the widget you want to add to the home screen. If you primarily use Ambient Music for sleeping, the smaller widget should do the trick.
6. Tap Add widget.
7. Tap Done.
8. To start playing, simply press the play button on the widget. If you’re not a fan of the current playlist, you can switch to one of the other three options. Long press the Ambient Music widget, go to Edit Widget and edit the playlist.

Besides the Home screen, you can also access ambient music from your lock screen or anywhere else on your device if you add it to Control Center. Go to your Control Center and edit it. Then, under the Ambient Music section, choose Sleep. A simple press of the Ambient Music control will automatically start playing the previously defined playlist. If you need to turn it off, touch and hold an empty space in Control Center, select the Ambient Music control, and choose another playlist.