The Good Life

Positive psychology and what makes life worth living.

by Christopher Peterson

Wakeup Calls

Maybe an upbeat song is just the wakeup we need.

Published on January 5, 2010 by Christopher Peterson, Ph.D. in The Good Life

I was surfing this morning and came across a website that archived the songs played every morning by mission control to the crew of STS-88, the first Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station.

Here is the link, and it appears that you can download the songs yourself. One might think this violates copyright law, but - hey - it is after all a government website.

These musical wakeup calls are apparently a long-standing tradition in the space program, and I got a kick out of the particular songs, an eclectic selection, some tongue-in-cheek but all empowering. These are listed below in reverse order. So, "Get Ready" was the wakeup for the first day of the mission.

"Ride of the Valkyries" - Richard Wagner
"I Feel Good" - James Brown
"Goodnight Sweetheart" - The Spaniels
"Hound Dog" - Elvis Presley
"Trepak" - Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker"
"God Bless the USA" - Lee Greenwood
"Floating In the Bathtub"
"Streets of Bakersfield" - Dwight Yoakum
"Jerry the Rigger" - old Celtic song
"Somewhere Over the Rainbow" - Judy Garland
"Anchors Aweigh" - Navy fight song
"Get Ready" - The Temptations

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I also stopped and thought about how some of us (meaning me) start the day, groggily and in search of coffee. Maybe an upbeat song would be just the wakeup that some of us need. Unless you are an astronaut, these particular songs may not work perfectly for you. You need to tailor your wakeups to the "you" that is being wakened. You probably need to vary them across the mornings. But it might be fun, even if you're not embarked on a space mission.

I suspect some of you readers do something like this already, and I would enjoy hearing about your own wakeup rituals.