This is best way to wake up, if you hate waking up, and you hate working out.
Waking up is hard. Like most young and young-ish people out there, my smartphone is tasked with alerting me to the fact that it’s time to get my butt out of bed in the morning. Or rather, to begin the 20-minute period where I lay in the fetal position making faint Chewbacca noises as I take in whatever fresh horrors the news cycle brings with it.
With a new app called Wakeout, however, my phone is taking on a new (and hopefully helpful) role: Making me work out before I can even begin to pollute my sleep-fresh brain with doom, gloom, and Instagram.
Before you shudder at the words “work out,” allow me to explain: It’s not a workout. Not even close. It takes less than three minutes, and you don’t need to get out of bed to do it. In fact, you’re very much supposed to remain in bed, in your pajamas, fully living your morning-breath truth as you do a randomized series of three mini “wakeouts” to get your blood pumping immediately after your alarm goes off.
For my first Wakeout session, I was assigned twenty seconds of “sock taps,” wherein you lay on your back and alternately lift one foot at a time.
This was followed by 15 seconds of “pillow swings,” where you’re instructed to sit on the edge of your bed and place your pillow on your knees. You then lift it over your head and then back down to your knees repeatedly for the duration.
The most strenuous portion comes last, and TBH, I really like their definition of “strenuous”: Forty seconds of “lazy bed crunches.” It’s the exact same thing as crunches, only not tortuous, because there’s minimal resistance.
Designed to “wake up and energize your body in less than three minutes,” Wakeout claims it’s “the most fun way to wake up.” While I’m dubious that it’s the most fun, the inherent silliness of doing faux exercises set to way-over-the-top 80s club instrumentals managed to make me laugh, which is more than I can say about CNN’s news app.
And while Wakeout is careful to emphasize that these “are not gym exercises,” but rather “easy exercises you do drowsy, using your pillow as a weight,” you not only reap the benefits of getting your blood flowing, but you also get the mental benefit of thinking you sorta-kinda did a tiny-baby workout and thus deserve a scone for breakfast.
Wins all around, in other words. The app is free to download, and it gives you access to 12 different exercises. If you opt for a monthly subscription at $1.99 or a yearly subscription at $14.99, you’ll have access to the full library of 65 exercises, plus the option to do additional exercises beyond those initial three each morning if you so choose.
