From March 12-18, the world will celebrate Sleep Awareness Week, while March 17 marks World Sleep Day. They serve as a call to action for the public to recognize sleep as a crucial part of health and well-being. That said, if you struggle to get to sleep or wind down before bedtime, here are six ways Siri can help you improve your quality of sleep.
Set a Focus Time
One of the worst things that can happen while sleeping is being woken up by a notification. With that in mind, with iOS 15, users can create different Focus Modes so they don’t get interrupted while they’re doing other things, including sleeping.
By going to Settings > Focus, you can choose a preferable Focus Mode or create a new one. You can customize the mode if you want a specific person or app to be able to reach you. You can even set a time or location for this feature to turn on automatically.
Another way to turn on Focus Mode is by saying, “Hey Siri, set Sleep Focus Mode.”
Organize your routine with Siri
Organizing your calendar is a good way to sleep worry-free. With Siri, you can schedule reminders that help you remember crucial to-dos before going to sleep. It’s possible to set location-based reminders, so Siri reminds you about your tasks before or after leaving home.
You can try commands like: “Hey Siri, remind me to take my medication at 7:30 pm,” or “Hey Siri, remind me to email tomorrow’s meeting agenda to the group at 7:30 pm.”
Turn off a family member’s alarm using Siri
This is one of the best tricks Siri has. If you’re tired of hearing your partner’s alarm playing non-stop because they’re too far from their iPhone, asking Siri to silence that alarm without you getting up is possible.
If you have Family Sharing turned on and you’re on the same Wi-Fi network, you can simply say, “Hey Siri, stop.” Siri will ask you to confirm that you want to stop the alarm that’s going off on the person’s iPhone, to which you can respond with “Yes” or “No.”
Control your home with Siri
Setting the perfect ambient is the best way to wind down before a good night’s sleep. By controlling your smart home accessories, you can ask Siri to add the right temperature and lighting. You can get started by:
- Control your home with any of your Apple devices that support Siri;
- Find accessories that work with Apple HomeKit, then set them up in the Home app;
- Create scenes and automation to control multiple accessories at the same time by simply asking Siri.
Once you’ve done that, you can control your accessories with “Hey Siri” commands, such as “Turn off the lights/the fan” or “Lock the door.” It’s possible to create a scene by saying “Good Night,” and it will automatically turn off all lights and lock the front door, for example.
Play ambient sleep sounds and playlists with Siri
With the help of a HomePod, you can ask Siri to play ambient sleep sounds by saying, “Hey Siri, play sounds.” This will make the personal assistant repeatedly play a random ambient sound until you ask it to stop.
You can also ask Siri to play a specific ambient sound, such as white noise, ocean sounds, stream sounds, forest sounds, and rain sounds. Another option is to create a playlist on Apple Music and just call it “Sleep,” and the next time you go to bed, say: “Hey Siri, play my sleep playlist.”
Set an Apple Music sleep timer with Siri
Last but not least, you can prevent Apple Music from endlessly playing music even after you’ve fallen asleep by saying, once the music starts playing, “Hey Siri, in X minutes, stop.” This is a great tip for those who like to sleep listening to a song but don’t want a playlist or album to play on repeat non-stop.
