Wake up to 'Wakey' - the new, micro breakfast show that'll brighten up your morning

published 20 January 2020

Writer, broadcaster and artistic director Deborah Coughlin talks about why her new app, Wakey!, will help improve your happiness, health and wellbeing. And Love Island's Chris Taylor is hosting!

It’s Blue Monday, the saddest monday because payday is still way off, and all our good intentions and resolutions have by now got in the bin with the Christmas tree. I’m just about still managing dry Jan, but Veganuary took a hit when faced with a stressful deadline last weekend I ordered some prawns. Who knew I had a prawn-related stress response?!

According to a study conducted by the University of Scranton, just 8% of people achieve their New Year’s goals. You would have thought that tech could help us out, with a million apps to keep an eye on us and keep us in line, but I was surprised to find that in clinical trials of health apps academics from Harvard University found 74% of users stop engaging with a health app after only ten uses. As they are, the machines are not going to save us from ourselves, and I think I know why.

A year and a half ago I left my work as a freelance writer and multimedia producer and joined a tech-for-good incubator called Zinc. That’s where 50 people from around the world are brought together to try and come up with ideas for tech products and services that can help with some of the developed world’s biggest problems.

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I focused on mental health. I’ve struggled with it myself, as have many of those closest to me. I can’t think of anything more fundamental to having a happy and fulfilling life. So, I looked at what was out there in the app world already to help us, and there’s loads, but are they going to keep our attention beyond ten uses? Probably not, but I know what does… entertainment.

That's where the idea for a new app and show came from - Wakey! We launch today January 20 - Blue Monday, and we're making wellbeing entertaining. It’s a micro breakfast show that replaces your boring alarm, wakey you up and giving you a dose of feel good entertainment all presented by Love Island 2019's Chris Taylor and Sink the Pink's Ginger Johnson.

We’ve got some amazing scientists working with some brilliant telly creatives, to make a new way of helping us all keep tabs on our wellbeing. Why does working on your wellbeing have to either be po-faced medical or pseudo spiritual? Why can’t we laugh and have fun? Well we think you can, and we think that’s what’s going to help us stick to the things we want to do to have a happier healthier life.

* Just download, set your alarm and wake up to Wakey! The first show is Monday 20th January. Available on iPhone and Android

Maria Coole is a contributing editor on Marie Claire.

Hello Marie Claire readers – you have reached your daily destination. I really hope you’re enjoying our reads and I'm very interested to know what you shared, liked and didn’t like (gah, it happens) by emailing me at: maria.coole@freelance.ti-media.com

But if you fancy finding out who you’re venting to then let me tell you I’m the one on the team that remembers the Spice Girls the first time round. I confidently predicted they’d be a one-hit wonder in the pages of Bliss magazine where I was deputy editor through the second half of the 90s. Having soundly killed any career ambitions in music journalism I’ve managed to keep myself in glow-boosting moisturisers and theatre tickets with a centuries-spanning career in journalism.

Yes, predating t’internet, when 'I’ll fax you' was grunted down a phone with a cord attached to it; when Glastonbury was still accessible by casually going under or over a flimsy fence; when gatecrashing a Foo Fighters aftershow party was easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy and tapping Dave Grohl on the shoulder was... oh sorry I like to ramble.

Originally born and bred in that there Welsh seaside town kindly given a new lease of life by Gavin & Stacey, I started out as a junior writer for the Girl Guides and eventually earned enough Brownie points to move on and have a blast as deputy editor of Bliss, New Woman and editor of People newspaper magazine. I was on the launch team of Look in 2007 - where I stuck around as deputy editor and acting editor for almost ten years - shaping a magazine and website at the forefront of body positivity, mental wellbeing and empowering features. More recently, I’ve been Closer executive editor, assistant editor at the Financial Times’s How To Spend It (yes thanks, no probs with that life skill) and now I’m making my inner fangirl’s dream come true by working on this agenda-setting brand, the one that inspired me to become a journalist when Marie Claire launched back in 1988.

I’m a theatre addict, lover of Marvel franchises, most hard cheeses, all types of trees, half-price Itsu, cats, Dr Who, cherry tomatoes, Curly-Wurly, cats, blueberries, cats, boiled eggs, cats, maxi dresses, cats, Adidas shelltops, cats and their kittens. I’ve never knowingly operated any household white goods and once served Ripples as a main course. And finally, always remember what the late great Nora Ephron said, ‘Everything is copy.’

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