How to Stop Insight Timer Being Interrupted by Sleep Mode

I’m a huge fan of the Insight Timer meditation app. It’s become my favorite meditation and mindfulness app and I can’t imagine living without it now!

Most of the meditations I listen to are sleep meditations while I wind down in bed. I use both iOS and Android devices depending on if I’m using my phone or tablet.

I had a problem with my Android device, in particular, going into sleep mode and interrupting a meditation, which is literally the worst possible thing that could happen.

If you’ve also had sleep mode causing a track on Insight Timer to stop, I can help by explaining how to disable your sleep mode:

Disabling Sleep Mode on Android Devices

Android devices put unused apps or your phone to sleep after a certain period of time to try and preserve battery life.

You don’t want this interrupting your meditation when Insight Timer or any other meditation app is running though.

Some tracks can be an hour or longer, the last thing you want is to get to the point of deep relaxation near the end only to be met with a sudden silence.

There are a lot of different types of Android devices, so the exact instructions may vary slightly. This should work for most devices running Oreo (Android 8.0) and above though:

1. Find Battery Optimization within the Settings app
2. Select Not Optimized and then select All Apps
3. Find Insight Timer and make sure it says “Not Allowed”, This means your device is not allowed to put it into sleep mode

I’ve spoken with people that said this worked for them. Depending on your other settings though your phone might go into sleep mode.

Something else to check is:

1. Go into your Android Settings and then into Wireless and Networks
2. Then find Data Usage and tap Restrict Background Data

This should allow you to keep on streaming from apps while your phone is resting without hindering a lot of your power saving benefits.

Disabling Sleep Mode on iOS Devices

On the latest version of iOS, I have no problems with Insight Timer continuing to run in the background when my phone goes into sleep mode.

If you do for some reason, however, there is a simple way to disable the auto-lock/sleep feature:

1. Go into Settings and find Display & Brightness
2. There you’ll see “Auto-Lock” you can change it to a set minute interval or disable it altogether.

That’s it, it’s as simple as that. Now you can lie down, relax, put your headphones in, and listen to your favorite Insight Timer tracks and meditations without worrying about your phone shutting down.

The only downside is you might have to keep it on while you drift off. Just pull up the brightness slider and turn the brightness right down and that solves that problem too!

Related – If you love Insight Timer check out my top 4 guided meditation apps.

Resources

Image credits – Photo by Oscar Nord on Unsplash