For several years they have been various investigations on the effects that smartphones can have on our quality of sleep. The famous “blue light” emitted by touchscreens can interfere with sleep patterns. The dangers of watching a series or your social networks just before going to sleep have also been pointed out.
However there is a way that these smartphones are our ideal night companion, using it to help us improve our sleep routine. If you have an iPhone, you should know that you can use your smartphone to track your sleep hours. If you want to use this function you have to know that its abilities to monitor your sleep are not as sophisticated as those of the Apple Watch Series 6, but it can help you to get a clearer idea of how long you are asleep each night.
How can I track my sleep with the iPhone?
The first thing we have to check is that we are using iOS 14 or laterSince from this software version we can set the time we go to bed in the Health application, set different goals and track our sleep.
Here’s how to configure Sleep in the app Health:
1. Open the app Health and scroll down the screen until you see a symbol of a bed with the words Configure Sleep. Click now to Begin.
2. Then you will get an eyelash (if it is the first time you use it) explaining the different options that you can configure in this application. Click where it says Next.
3. In the next tab that appears to us we must establish a dream target. Using the symbols of «+» And «-» we can adjust the hours of sleep default on our device which is 8 hours. Once we have configured it we have to click on Next.
Four. Now we have to define our first schedule. Above we have to indicate the active days, that is to say, the days that, so to speak, we get up earlier to work. To mark or unmark a day we just have to press it. Let’s imagine that we only want to mark the days from Monday to Friday, the circles with the letters LMXJ and V should be color blue. Under the active days we find a kind of clock where we have to mark the bedtime and wake-up time. With this, the iPhone will generate a reminder and an alarm To warn you. We can adjust the time by moving the icon bed Or the Tinker Bell. If we have adjusted our sleep hours to 8 hours and you adjust it to, for example, sleep only 7 hours, you will notice that this line becomes Orange. Finally we have the alarm options where we can first adjust if we want an alarm clock or not and what sound we want to put on it. When we are done we have to click on Add up to the right.
5. We are almost done, now you will get a tab with a summary about your schedules where can we Edit what we just did or add a schedule for the others days that we had not selected as active days. Now click on Next.
6. Finally you will get information about the Sleep mode, where the do not disturb mode automatically when you go to sleep. We can Activate Sleep mode or click Skip if we don’t want this automation. In Settings> Do Not Disturb we can allow incoming calls from certain people while the iPhone is in this mode. And in the next tab with another summary we click on okay to end.
7. If you don’t have an Apple Watch you would stay in the previous step. If you have one, you will get another tab to Control sleep with Apple Watch. Your watch can control how long you sleep and wake you up to a quieter alarm where it will gently vibrate. You can give to Activate or Skip.
8. In the next tab with another summary we click on okay to end.
View your sleep data
Once you have configured in the Health app your hours of sleep, the iPhone will start monitoring it. It won’t detect if you wake up in the middle of the night to drink a glass of water or go to the bathroom. It will only tell you when you went to bed and when you woke up (when you pick up the phone again). Little by little it will generate graphics that will help you see how much you have been sleeping every day.
1. When you have used it for a few days go to Health app and tap on the tab To explore Bottom right.
2. Now look again for the bed icon with dream text and click on it.
Now you can see the graphs which we were talking about earlier. In this menu you can also add data, see the week or the month or edit your schedule. At the bottom, Apple will give you some tips to get more out of the Health app.
Yes you don’t have iOS 14 or higherDon’t worry, you can use apps from the AppStore to track your sleep that work the same way. Remember that in Settings you can also change everything you have adjusted in the Health app.