Heavy Duty Trucking, December 2020

SAFETY COMPLIANCE gests starting to drop the temperature inside the cab an hour or so before bedtime Even with sporadic schedules drivers can coax their bodies and brains to sleep if they follow a regular sleep time routine often called sleep hygiene If its daylight you can imitate the onset of night by wearing blue blocker sunglasses Avoid screen time unless you can dial down the blue light as with night time settings found on many devices If youre indoors or in the truck close the curtain dim the lights and read rather than watch TV Do something quiet and relaxing GET PHYSICAL ACTIVITY Exercise could not be more important Winter says even though its difficult to 4 get when youre on the road He suggests some resistance routines with those stretchy rubber bands before you sleep or after you sleep A brisk walk is helpful too to help relax and clear your mind According to Johns Hopkins moderate aerobic exercise increases the amount of slow wave sleep you get Slow wave sleep refers to of 14 hours on duty and 10 hours off duty was intended to address regular sleep times But it doesnt always work out in real life There are real health consequences to sporadic sleep schedules even if the amounts are correct Winter says We can see patterns in health problems with people who have done a lot of shift work over the course of their lives compared with people who routinely wake and sleep at the same time every day He also recommends trying to keep consistent mealtimes even when your schedule is out of whack If youre not hungry for lunch at lunchtime which is when you typically eat try eating something light like a few crackers or half of some sort of nutrition bar just to give your brain the signal that this is lunchtime so heres some food Thats better than eating big meals at irregular times PREPARE YOUR BODY FOR SLEEP Its hard to switch from full on like when driving to full off as you prepare to sleep 3 Because sleep is associated with a lowering of the bodys internal temperature Winter sug deep sleep where the brain and body have a chance to rejuvenate Exercise can also help to stabilize your mood and decompress the mind a cognitive process that is important for naturally transitioning to sleep says Charlene Gamaldo medical director of Johns Hopkins Center for Sleep at Howard County General Hospital But for some people exercising too late in the day can interfere with how well they rest at night I encourage people to listen to their bodies to see how well they sleep in response to when they work out Gamaldo adds TAKE REGULAR NAPS Napping is a topic unto itself and worthy of a lot more words than we have room 5 for here but Winter says naps can be very valuable for drivers as a drowsiness mitigation strategy when taken appropriately You have to be careful with napping he says If somebody tells me they go to bed every night at 10 oclock but it takes four hours to fall asleep so they often nap dur REVOLUTIONARY SYSTEM NARY ARP NEW TARP aeroindustries com 8005359545 Built from the ground up AeroForce delivers the ultimate in versatility durability and performance Applications available for side to side dump and roll of containers HDT DECEMBER 2020 22 WWW TRUCKINGINFO COM C M Y CM MY CY CMY K ai16057364368_ HDT_ AeroForce Nov18 PRESS pdf 1 11 18 20 4 54 PM