When Apple released iOS 17 in September, the tech giant introduced a handful of new features to your iPhone, like offline maps and Live Stickers. However, when the tech giant released iOS 15 in 2021, it included a useful feature that could help you focus or unwind, called Background Sounds.
This feature offers six different ambient noises that play on a loop: rain, stream and ocean, as well as bright, balanced and dark noise, which are different pitches of white noise. You can play these by themselves or under any podcast, music or video streaming app.
Read more: White Noise vs. Brown Noise: Which One Is Best for Sleep?
Listening to natural sounds can lower stress, relieve perceived pain and foster a more positive disposition, according to research from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. White noise could help adults learn new words, and it could improve learning in environments full of distractions, according to different studies. Natural sounds and white noise can also help lull listeners to sleep.
Here’s how to enable Background Sounds on your iPhone.
Set up Background Sounds
1. Tap Settings.
2. Swipe down and tap Accessibility.
3. Swipe down again and tap Audio & Visual.
4. Tap Background Sounds.
5. Tap the toggle next to Background Sounds near the top of the menu to enable the feature.
6. Tap Sound to listen to the different noise options. If you’re using the feature for the first time, the sounds have to download, so it might take a second.
You can also tap the toggle next to Use When Media Is Playing toallow Background Sounds to keep playing while you’re watching a video or listening to music. And tapping the toggle next to Stop Sounds When Locked ensures Background Sounds will turn off when your device locks. If you don’t have this enabled, the sounds will continue to play when your device locks.
Background Sounds using Control Center
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