Do you struggle to fall asleep? You're not alone. An estimated 3.3 million Canadians (that's one in seven) have difficulty falling or staying asleep. We all know the facts: getting a decent amount of high-quality sleep is integral to your quality of life, and lack of sleep can contribute to fatigue, depression, anxiety, and poor daytime performance both physically and mentally.
So what can be done? You've tried all of the usual tricks: counting sheep, deep meditative breathing, white noise machines.... but to no avail. You may be overlooking one strategy that many people haven't considered: listening to an audiobook. Audiobooks can provide the distraction that your brain needs to fall asleep, but without the stimulating light that a TV or iPad that can keep you awake at night.
If you're concerned that you might fall asleep with the audiobook running all night long and drain your phone batteries, we've got a trick for you! Did you know that your iPhone has a timer that will automatically shut off your audiobook for you? You don't need to risk being startled awake six hours later at the end of your book (and accidentally hearing the identity of the killer in your murder mystery!). Here's what you need to do.
First, open up your audiobook and start listening. Side note: if you're not an audiobook person, this will also work with a relaxing music playlist or any other type of media that you can play on your iPhone.
Next, open your Clock app. Under the timer function, set the timer for the amount of time that you'd like to listen to your audiobook (we're using 30 minutes as an example). Under "When Timer Ends", scroll down to the bottom of the list and select "Stop Playing".
So, what happens next? Your work is done! At the end of the 30 minutes, your phone will automatically shut off any media playing on your phone. Fingers crossed that you'll be peacefully dreaming by this point...
