It's well established that silence is important for focus, but let's face it: silence isn't always an option. Someone is using a leafblower outside my window right now, for example. So when the noise around you is unbearable, it's sometimes best to turn to background sounds.
If you have an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, you don't need a separate app for the job—they all come with built-in white noise. Here's how to find them.
How to enable white noise and background sounds on your iPhone
Here's how to get white noise on your iPhone:
Open the Settings.
Scroll down, and tap Accessibility.
Scroll down to the Hearing section, and tap Audio/Visual.
Tap Background Sounds.
Toggle Background Sounds on.
Choose which sound you want. (There are three natural water sounds: ocean, rain, and stream. The other three choices—balanced noise, bright noise, and dark noise—are more atmospheric. Try them all out and see what feels best.)
Set a volume for the sound.
Choose whether the sound should play while you're listening to media, and what the volume should be while listening to media.
Decide if the sounds should stop when your iPhone is locked. (Toggle that on if so.)
If you enable a background sound, an ear icon will be added to your Control Center, which you can open by swiping down from the top-right of your screen. Tap the ear, and you can toggle which sound is playing, set the volume for the background sound, and even turn the feature off altogether.
How to enable white noise and background sounds on your iPad
The process is pretty much the same on your iPad:
Open the Settings.
Scroll down, and tap Accessibility.
Scroll down to the Hearing section, and tap Audio & Visual.
You'll find the Background Sounds toggle here—turn it on.
Choose which sound you want.
Set a volume for the sound.
Choose whether the sound should play while you're listening to media, and what the volume should be while listening to media.
Decide if the sounds should stop when your iPad is locked. (Toggle that on if so.)
The ear icon will now exist in your Control Center too, just like it does on the iPhone.
How to enable background sounds on your Mac
Most people work from their actual computers, so here's how to enable the background sounds on your Mac (you need to be on macOS Ventura for it to work).
Click the Apple logo in the top-right corner of your screen, and select System Settings.
Open Accessibility.
Under Hearing, click Audio.
From here, you can enable the Background sounds option.
On a Mac, you can optionally enable a menu bar icon to control these sounds. Head to Control Center in the left-side panel, and scroll down to Hearing. Enable the Show in Menu Bar toggle.
This will add an ear icon to your menu bar, which you can click to choose to quickly turn the background sound option on or off, select a background sound, or adjust the volume.
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