Techniques for performing timer-based sleep to extend sleep time and thus battery life for a terminal in a wireless communication system. The likelihood of data traffic may be related to recent usage. If recent usage indicates that data traffic is unlikely, then the terminal can continue to maintain the link but monitor the signals from the system at a reduced rate. In one method, the probability of data traffic for the terminal is initially estimated (e.g., based on time since last activity and a particular usage model). A timer value is then determined based on the estimated probability of data traffic. The timer value may be modified based on an event, which may relate to link maintenance, hand-off, and so on. Sleep is then performed for the duration corresponding to the unmodified or modified timer value and may extend past one or more designated paging slots.