Suggested App Of The Week: Wake Up Apps

Recent studies have shown that using an alarm clock to wake yourself in the morning can be hazardous to your health. According to a study conducted by the National Institute of Industrial Health in Japan, people who were suddenly forced awake had higher blood pressure and heart rate than those allowed to wake up on their own time.

Recent studies have shown that using an alarm clock to wake yourself in the morning can be hazardous to your health. According to a study conducted by the National Institute of Industrial Health in Japan, people who were suddenly forced awake had higher blood pressure and heart rate than those allowed to wake up on their own time.

And the use of an alarm makes this process more problematic, as the alarm’s sudden noise can trigger the body’s protective fight or flight response, which raises adrenaline levels in the body.

So how can we still use an alarm without harbouring its negative effects on the body? Fortunately, there’s an app for that! And this week’s suggested apps are all about alarm clocks that have special features that help us wake the natural way.

WARMLY


Our first app is called Warmly and is created by The Chaos Collective. Unlike other alarm clocks and apps, Warmly wakes you up using gentle sounds of weather or something you enjoy like cooking breakfast, brewing coffee or a catching a plane.

The app can also get local weather information through the internet and use an alarm that fits the day’s weather forecast to wake you up. And unlike alarm clocks, Warmly sets off a few minutes before the time you’ve set but in a quiet mode and then very gradually turns up the volume so you’ll wake up naturally to the sounds of the day you’ve selected.

Warmly is available for free on Google Play.

TIMELY


Another cool alarm app you might want to consider is Timely. It’s an app very similar in terms of functionality to Warmly since it sports a feature called “Smart Rise” that is based on advanced sleep cycle theory.

This means the app goes off 30 minutes before the regular alarm and wakes the user using a slowly fading melody that doesn’t shock the body. On top of that, Timely sports one of the most beautifully crafted UI of any alarm app combining the look and feel of a lava lamp with flat and minimalist texts.

Timely is built by BitSpin and is available as a free and paid version on Google Play.