I just read an informative article on the health risks of inadequate sleep and the benefits of adequate sleep. While the risks and benefits are real, the article presumes people have the ability to sleep on a regular schedule. That's not realistic for expediters. It's the nature of the job to run anytime of the day or night.
Consequently, it's not so much the case that expediters are at risk for the effects of irregular and/or inadequate sleep. For most expediters, it is probably the case that the negative effects are being experienced on an ongoing basis. If we were talking about fire, it's not that your house is at risk of burning, it's that the house is burning now.
The negative effects of inadequate and/or irregular sleep add up over time. According to the article, "Inadequate sleep, or insufficient restorative sleep accumulated over time can cause physical or psychiatric symptoms and affect routine task performance. Sleep deprivation can cause memory problems, a weakening of your immune system and lead to depression. Long-term effects of sleep deprivation include a high risk of obesity, heart disease, hypertension, cancer, mental distress and stroke."
So the question becomes, when you live a lifestyle that makes a regular sleep pattern all but impossible, what do you do to reduce or offset the negative consequences of that lifestyle? What do you do to get the best sleep you can?
When on the road, Diane and I made sleep our number one priority. Many times, we'd go to sleep in the morning after an overnight run, keeping the phones on and waking up to load offers. Other times, when we felt it necessary, we'd go out of service to sleep, turning the phones off to get the sleep we needed.Teams have an advantage where one can sleep while the other takes the calls.
When sitting, if we felt even a hint of drowsiness, we'd put on a high-quality blindfold and lay down to give our bodies the chance to sleep. Sometimes that resulted in laying there for five minutes and getting back up because the drowsy feeling passed. Sometimes it resulted in a nice 15 minute or two hour nap. Once in a while, we'd be surprised to wake up many hours later, realizing then that we were more tired than we first thought.
There was a dramatic improvement in the quality of sleep we got when we bought a truck of our own and spec'ed a comfortable bed (Sleep Number matress, standard size bed). That made a welcome difference both when the truck was parked and when one of us was driving and the other was sleeping. The window inserts our sleeper manufacturer (ARI) provided were also a big plus. In the middle of a sunny day we could almost totally black out the sleeper.
What are your sleep-management techniques? What tricks do you use to get the best possible sleep you can in a job that makes it hard to do?
Consequently, it's not so much the case that expediters are at risk for the effects of irregular and/or inadequate sleep. For most expediters, it is probably the case that the negative effects are being experienced on an ongoing basis. If we were talking about fire, it's not that your house is at risk of burning, it's that the house is burning now.
The negative effects of inadequate and/or irregular sleep add up over time. According to the article, "Inadequate sleep, or insufficient restorative sleep accumulated over time can cause physical or psychiatric symptoms and affect routine task performance. Sleep deprivation can cause memory problems, a weakening of your immune system and lead to depression. Long-term effects of sleep deprivation include a high risk of obesity, heart disease, hypertension, cancer, mental distress and stroke."
So the question becomes, when you live a lifestyle that makes a regular sleep pattern all but impossible, what do you do to reduce or offset the negative consequences of that lifestyle? What do you do to get the best sleep you can?
When on the road, Diane and I made sleep our number one priority. Many times, we'd go to sleep in the morning after an overnight run, keeping the phones on and waking up to load offers. Other times, when we felt it necessary, we'd go out of service to sleep, turning the phones off to get the sleep we needed.Teams have an advantage where one can sleep while the other takes the calls.
When sitting, if we felt even a hint of drowsiness, we'd put on a high-quality blindfold and lay down to give our bodies the chance to sleep. Sometimes that resulted in laying there for five minutes and getting back up because the drowsy feeling passed. Sometimes it resulted in a nice 15 minute or two hour nap. Once in a while, we'd be surprised to wake up many hours later, realizing then that we were more tired than we first thought.
There was a dramatic improvement in the quality of sleep we got when we bought a truck of our own and spec'ed a comfortable bed (Sleep Number matress, standard size bed). That made a welcome difference both when the truck was parked and when one of us was driving and the other was sleeping. The window inserts our sleeper manufacturer (ARI) provided were also a big plus. In the middle of a sunny day we could almost totally black out the sleeper.
What are your sleep-management techniques? What tricks do you use to get the best possible sleep you can in a job that makes it hard to do?
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