Promised yourself you'll go to bed earlier this new year, but finding it hard to put your phone down on time?
Our guide to the best mattresses of 2026 can help you find the perfect pick for your body type and sleep needs
While you're certainly not alone — research by the American Academy of Sleep Science reveals 80% of US adults admit they lose sleep due to liking, swiping and scrolling — pre-bed phone use is likely sabotaging your sleep, posing serious health risks.
Between endless social media feeds and constant notifications, phones have no trouble keeping you hooked. But with a little smart tuning, you can turn your phone from a sleep-stealing device to one that helps you keep a consistent sleep schedule.
Here's exactly how to customize your phone so you can finally kick that doom scrolling habit, get quality sleep, and wake up refreshed come morning.
3 iPhone features for better sleep
From quieting down at bedtime to sleep tracking, these are the three iPhone settings that can help you get better rest and wake up with energy...
Sleep Focus
Syncing with the bed and wake times you set in settings, or the Health app, Apple's Sleep Focus automatically activates Do Not Disturb mode, silencing calls, text and notifications.
It also turns on a simplified Lock Screen during your desired sleep time, cutting out the temptation to reply to one more text or check out one more notification when you should be sleeping.
When your bedtime is approaching, a notification pops up reminding you to 'protect your sleep'. I find this encourages me to put the phone down and pick up a book instead, helping me wind down without a flickering screen.
You can find this feature by opening Settings > Focus > Sleep.
Here you can set your sleep schedule (bedtime and wake-up time) that aligns with your Health App sleep goal, choose a wind-down period (15 minutes to 3 hours before bed) where your screen dims, and notifications are filtered.
You can select who can contact you and which apps can send notifications during your sleep time — a handy feature for parents or those with dependents.
App Limits
Research shows Americans spend, on average, three and a half hours on social media every night before bed — my heart dropped thinking of all the things that could be done in that time when reading that stat, too.
Anyhow, by setting app time limitations in your settings, you can be aware and manage how much time you give up to scrolling each app per day.
With this setting enabled, reminders will pop up when you've reached your pre-set daily scroll limit. I'm an Instagram reels fiend, but with my reminder set, I'm clocking off the app much earlier in the evenings.
You can find this feature by going to Settings > Screen Time > App Limits. Here you can set a limit on each app individually, so you don't end up in that bedtime TikTok black hole.
Health App Sleep Tracking
While you'll get the most intricate overnight biometric and sleep data from a wearable device, which syncs with the Apple Health app, the iOS app alone offers some basic sleep tracking.
Thanks to built-in motion sensors, your iPhone can detect your movements to predict the time you fall asleep as well as the time you wake up, giving you a rough picture of how much sleep you get per night (remembering seven to eight hours is the expert-recommended dose) and, crucially, how consistent your sleep schedule is.
Note, a new study shows sleeping at regular times is more important than hitting a certain sleep duration. Your iPhone's ability to detect rough sleep timings can help you stick to a consistent schedule.
But for deets on your sleep stages, heart rate, exact sleep latency, and all that good stuff, you'll need to invest in one of our tried-and-tested best sleep trackers of the year.
