Aspects of the present disclosure provide techniques for the user equipment (UE) to select a power management mode from a plurality of power management modes supported by the UE based on decoding of a portion of the downlink subframe. For example, when the UE receives a subframe from a base station, the UE may decode a control channel region of the subframe to determine whether the subframe includes a channel grant allocated to the UE. If no channel grant is included in the subframe, the UE may select a power management mode for the UE from the plurality of power management modes supported by the UE that maximizes the UE's sleep opportunities while balancing the deficient performance costs.