People are just realizing iPhones have a hidden ‘sleep timer’ to help you drift off

IF you struggle to get to sleep, a handy iPhone trick may be able to help.

Your iPhone has a hidden “sleep timer” that is very useful.

If you regularly use music, podcasts or relaxing sounds to get to sleep, the iPhone can come in handy.

But you might not want your iPhone to be making noise all night – or it could wake you up again.

One trick to resolve that issue is to set a “sleep timer” that will turn your music off after a certain amount of time.

While playing a song on Apple Music, open Clock and head to the Timer tab.

Set the time you want to pass before your music stops and then tap When Timer Ends.

Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the dropdown list and tap Stop Playing. Hit Start to begin the timer.

Now, when the time is up it will automatically pause the music or podcast you have playing on Apple Music.

It’s also possible to do this in some apps without even having to go to Clock.

For instance, launch the Apple Podcasts app and then look in the bottom-right corner.

Tap the half moon symbol and then you can set podcast timers.

For instance, you can have the podcast turn off When Current Episode Ends.

Or you could set timers for 5, 10, 15, 30, 45 minutes or one hour.

And that’s not all.

When playing a track on Spotify, for instance, tap the three dots in the top right corner of the Now Playing screen.

Scroll down and tap Sleep Timer. Specify the amount of time you would like to pass before the music stops.

One more trick…

Apple also has some built-in sleep sounds that you can enjoy.

That includes rain sounds and even white noise.

There are six options to choose from:

• Balanced Noise
• Bright Noise
• Dark Noise
• Ocean
• Rain
• Stream

Go into your Settings app, then choose Accessibility > Audio/Visual > Background Sounds.

Now switch the Background Sounds toggle at the top of the page to the ON position.

Then go into Sound and choose one that you like.

You can then set a volume, and even choose whether you’d like the background noise to play during media.

That means you could have soothing rain sounds while listening to a podcast.

If you don’t want to navigate to this menu every time, you can create a shortcut.

Go to Settings > Accessibility > Accessibility Shortcut and then choose Background Sounds.

Now when you triple-click the side button on your iPhone, your chosen Background Sounds will play.

You can also add it as an option on your Control Centre too.