Arguably, most people don’t like being jolted awake by a loud and aggressive alarm from their phone in the morning. If you are a light sleeper, this is even more of an issue as the shock of an alarm can frighten you at the same time. And while you can create a custom alarm sound on your iPhone, it might seem a little complicated for casual users.
On top of that, loud alarms can impact our overall health in a negative way with rapid spikes in blood pressure, increased cortisol levels, and simply leaving us in a bad mood to start the day. A loud alarm could have you reaching for the snooze button, out of shock or annoyance, but getting a few more minutes of sleep may not actually aid your body.
Fortunately, if you have installed iOS 26 on your iPhone, you have access to a neat hidden feature that can make your morning experience more pleasant. It’s inside the Health app, where you have the ability to set up multiple sleep schedules. With each schedule created, you can also adjust the alarm sound itself, something that can affect the way you wake up.
A gentler way to wake up
Setting up a sleep schedule is a simple process. Begin by opening up the Health app on your iPhone and tapping on the magnifying glass icon at the bottom right of the screen. From here you can tap the Sleep option and scroll down until you see the Your Schedule feature. Turning this on will allow you to select the Set Your First Schedule option.
From here, you will have a number of options to choose from. You can set when you want your schedule to run on by tapping on days under the Days Active section. You can adjust your bedtime by dragging the bed icon to your desired slot and set your wake up time by dragging the alarm icon on the circular slider.
Below the bedtime and wake up slider, you can activate the Alarm option. From here you’ll be able to adjust the volume and intensity of the alarm as well as select a different alarm sound. Many of the included alarms are less stressful on the body and may aid in waking you up more gently in the morning. On the topic of hidden iPhone alarm features, be sure to check out why the iPhone’s alarm clock went viral when users found a hidden quirk that’s been hiding in plain sight for years.