It should be noted that, after the to-be-monitored wake up signal is detected based on the configuration of the to-be-monitored wake up signal, if the to-be-monitored wake up signal indicates that the terminal device is to be paged, a physical downlink control channel is monitored in a paging subframe corresponding to the to-be-monitored wake up signal; or if the to-be-monitored wake up signal indicates that the terminal device is not to be paged, a physical downlink control channel is not monitored in a paging subframe corresponding to the to-be-monitored wake up signal, in other words, the terminal device may continue to maintain a current sleep state or power saving state.