how do you stay awake?

[Fr8 Shaker]

XM 165 Rollye James 10 pm. to 1 am. then George Noory from 1 am. to 5 am. Both usually very interesting shows and on Rollye's show, friday is trivia night. but the main thing is get to shipper early if possible, freight is usually ready early which adds time for your trip and try to make up as much time as possible along the way. (easier to do in a van) also power nap 15 - 20 minutes along the way if needed or longer if time allows.

 

[Paul56]

One does not attempt to stay awake because that is an safe running condition.

When one feels sleepy the only true "cure" for it is sleep, so pull it over and get some sleep if you run solo.

If you run team, let your partner take over for a while... while you get some sleep in back.

 

[Jefferson3000]

Ok. Of course as we all know, it's never safe to take a load when your too tired to run it. But as we also know, there are those times when all seems good for the first few hours, and then for some reason we suddenly feel just a little fatigued. In those cases, here is my little list.

--CAFFEINE: Caffeine can and does help.

--ENERGY DRINKS: The best help from these is a sugar-free version. You can avoid the sugar "high" this way along with the subsequent "crash". Taurine, while not is huge amount in any of these drinks, does help stimulate the fluid in your eyeballs, thus helping you remain alert.

--EXERCISE: Get out and run a few laps around your truck. get the blood moving. Jumping jacks work as well.

--CABIN TEMP: Make the cabin temperature a little on the cold side, even if you must wear a coat.

All of the above have been mentioned in some form or another in this thread. Here is my ace in the hole that I haven't seen mentioned yet.

--CHEWING GUM! Personally, I never liked any kind of gum, but I use it when I need to. Again, try and stay sugar-free to avoid the sugar peaks and valleys in your system. Chewing gum causes your jaw muscle to move much needed oxygen through the blood within your head, thus helping you stay awake and alert.

Hope this helps.


Drive Safe!

Jeff

Driver for 15 years
O/O for 13 years
OOIDA #829119

[em]"Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed." --Mark Twain[/em]

 

[greg334]

I just talk to myself, usually about people who talk to themselves.

No seriously :+

For me it is about regulation, regulating meals and keeping a regular schedule, sleep.

During the ride at night it is snacking, chips or peanuts if it is hot out, good jerky or dried meat without sugar, or what ever is handy. Sometimes stopping and getting out my p38 and a couple cans of veggies and tuna.

Coffee is relevant to how much I have been sitting or how much coffee I have had in the past week. if I run during the day, I will not have coffee so to enhance the effect of the coffee. Starbucks coffee of the day with a shot or two of Expresso cooled off to room temp works for me.

Oh if I am pushing myself, I will pick up the phone and call my wife to get her mad so I can spend an hour or two apologizing to her for waking her up.

 

[dhalltoyo]

Diet Mountain Dew - 2/20 oz

Coffee - 2/16oz

Frequent rest stops after consuming the above liquids

Gum

Hard Candy

Open windows

Call a friend who is driving too

Radio Talk Shows - Midnight to 5am

Preaching CD's - Anytime

Hmmmmmm. I do talk to myself

 

[60MPH]

A big fat cigar or two and a gallon of water and a big 44oz cup of ice, and when I say a big fat cigar I mean a real handmade one, I have some churchill size cigar's that will last almost 150 miles or more, and don't forget the xm cranked all the way up!!! "usually the 80's channel" LOL


60 MPH ALL DAY-EVERY DAY

 

[Jefferson3000]

Oh yeah. 60MPH made a great point. LOTS OF WATER. Dehydration is a big cause of fatigue and / or sleepiness. Gatorade will definitely revive a tired one.


Drive Safe!

Jeff

Driver for 15 years
O/O for 13 years
OOIDA #829119

[em]"Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed." --Mark Twain[/em]

 

[60MPH]

I forgot to add I sing at the top of my lungs to myself and of course sometimes I key up the mic so everyone else can hear my wonderful voice, you can usually catch me singing between 03:00 and 04:30 keeping everyone else awake too!! All of ya'll have probley heard me singing out there. great hits from the 80's & 90's stuff like right said fred, duran-duran, blondie, and every once in a while samantha fox.



60 MPH ALL DAY-EVERY DAY

 

[Turtle]

"...of course sometimes I key up the mic so everyone else can hear my wonderful voice,..."

Uhm, sorry SuperTrucker, no one gives a rodent's rear end about your wonderful voice. Singing over the CB brands you as self-centered, rude and inconsiderate, A.K.A., a Richard. When one so willfully and gleefully violates the most basic of FCC regulations, one can only wonder what else out there you may be dismissing so easily.

Why bother wasting time learning when ignorance is instantaneous?

 

[Paul56]

All these little "keep awake" tips that are posted in this thread are fine as long as you keep in mind that the *only* solution for being sleepy is to get some sleep.

The only reason you need to keep awake is to find the nearest safe spot to pull over and switch drivers or have a nap.

There is no such thing as operating a vehicle while trying to stay awake, you are either alert or you are not. If you are not alert then get off the road and stop placing yourself and others at risk.

I'm not sure it does the professional driver's image much good when someone wanders into this forum to see a thread full of tips on how to keep awake while behind the wheel.

End of rant... back to your regular programming.

 

[cheri1122]

>I'm not sure it does the professional driver's image much
>good when someone wanders into this forum to see a thread
>full of tips on how to keep awake while behind the wheel.
>
>End of rant... back to your regular programming.

If that "someone" has any experience driving anything larger than a 4 wheeler, they'd know that safe and legal places to park, especially at night, can be impossible to find - there simply aren't enough. When you haven't a codriver to hand off to, things can be a lot more difficult and time consuming.
We did point out, also, that there's a difference between the sleepies caused by boredom, and the fatigue that requires sleep. We are professional enough to know the difference, and responsible enough to refuse to endanger anyone, I would hope.

 

[dhalltoyo]

Paul,

Of course, there is no replacement or substitute for sleep.

I am certain that those professionals who responded are keenly aware of that fact.

My previous reply was not to insinuate that one should operate beyond the physical requirement for sleep, but more so directed toward those habits that keep me alert so I do not become lulled into an inattentive state of mind.

Awake is also defined as:
1. to rouse to action; become active: His flagging interest awoke.
2. to come or bring to an awareness ; become cognizant (often fol. by to): She awoke to the realities of life.

Please forgive me if I was unclear when I previously provided several tips for staying awake. I should have prefaced my statements by indicating that they were tips for staying alert. Moreover, I believe several of the posts were also injecting a bit of humor mixed in with their replies. If we can’t laugh at ourselves……..life might become pretty dull.

 

[randb]

I asked an older driver, many years ago, how he stayed awake when he got sleepy. He said the best way he knew of was to hold your arm out the window with a $100.00 bill in your hand.
Seriously though, we all have had to drive when sleepy and it is no fun. What works best for me is in most of the posts already. Keep the cab cold, small amounts of coffee over the entire driving period, something to eat or chew on, stop often and run around the truck a few times to get the heart going, call someone on the cell phone and find a cd that keeps you awake. Most of all, please get your sleep. It's the best way to stay awake. Be safe.

 

[lonercom]

When I went to "Pumpkin School" aka Shneider Trick Driving Academy, they taught us that a correct Power Nap is 1 hour, anymore gets you groggy, any less is ineffective. Most carriers figure your driving time at 40 to 45 MPH. that should leave plenty of time for a nap.

I do have a great gospel CD that I sing along to when I need the boredom fix.

Coffee, conversation and talk radio do help, but the nap is the key.

Also I do try to sleep until about 3PM as much as possible. My carrier stays busy until 9PM then odds of a load diminish.

Bob

 

[greg334]

A little off topic but Paul56, what professional drivers?

I look around and in the last few weeks I have seen some really bad behavior and I am starting to cringe when I hear someone call me a truck driver.

Sorry for the departure.

 

[Turtle]

The best power nap occurs for whatever length of time it takes before you just hit REM sleep. For most people, that's between 90-120 minutes. Anything less than that and it's less effective. For me, I need at least 90 minutes before I awake refreshed and alert. One hour doesn't work.

Stages of Sleep

Stage 1 - Drowsiness, lasts from 5-10 minutes.

Stage 2 - Light Sleep, lasts from 20-30 minutes, less if very tired, more if less tired.

Stage 3 - Deep Sleep Transition, lasts from 5-15 minutes, low end if very tired.

Stage 4 - Deep Sleep (Delta Sleep), lasts for 30-40 minutes.

It's at or near the end of Stage 4 is where the effectiveness of the power nap is to be found. After that is REM sleep. However, Stages 3 and 2 repeat backwards before REM sleep is attained. The normal sleep cycle is 1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, REM. For most people, that's 90-120 minutes before REM sleep is reached. While you may think a one-hour power nap works, a large part of why it works is because one hour is a nice even round number, so people think it works. The scientific reality is that it takes (most people) at least 90 minutes, but no more than 120 minutes, to get the most benefit from that power nap.

On the other end of the scope of things is how long can you sleep before you need to finish it out? For most people, that's 4 hours. Anymore than four hours and your body will demand it's allotted 8-9 hours and you'll spend the rest of the day groggy and juuuuust a little out of it.

People who vehemently declare that they only need 4 hours of sleep a night are kidding themselves (they certainly crack me up). They are the ones who get tired mid-afternoon, get drowsy while driving, sometimes after very short distances. These are the people who proudly run the week on 4 hours a day, then crash on the weekends, sleeping most of it away. Or they get sick a lot, with mild flu-like symptoms, and then wonder where they caught the bug from.

If they defend the 4 hours a night by saying that they can only sleep that long, that every time they go to sleep they wake up 4 hours later, they're still going through life tired, whether they will admit it or not. These people need to go to a sleep clinic and git er dun.


Slow and steady, even in expediting, wins the race - Aesop

 

[sucbadriver]

I like those 5 hr enegery drinks you dont have a crash when they wear down. And then only in a pinch. I have gone so far as to put myself sleeping availble

 

[arrbsthw]

Just so u know, those 5 hr energy drinks will damage your liver
according to the news on tv several weeks back.
You may want to research this.

 

[vandriver101]

LBD,
I have been in this senario many times and at first I would take the run knowing that there would be ##### to pay at around 3:00 am till around 6:00 when the sun starts to come up!!!!It's very difficult to judge when to sleep or make a sleep schedule,especially when you have no idea when a load may be offered to you.The new Panther policy,however is a god sent to all the drivers,because you can put your self available sleeping and you will still retain your board position.This new policy has been very helpful to me,to somewhat set a normal schedule for myself and is much safer than accepting a load on little to no sleep.The bottom line,I have found is that no matter how many enegy drinks,slapping yourself,playing loud music,running around the truck and taking power naps,there is just no comparison to a proper sleep and still be profittable!!!
Take care be safe!!

O/O B unit Panther #11514 Since 03/06

 

[unorthodoxneon]

Usually nodding off and hitting the rumble strips a few times gives me a good scare and keeps me up for a bit longer.