The Most Important Takeaways from the 2022 Annual Conference Session on Driver Fatigue

By Rodolfo Giacoman, Fatigue Management Specialist, Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance 

During the 2022 CVSA Annual Conference and Exhibition in Rapid City, South Dakota, I conducted a two-hour information session titled “Don’t Know Much About Driver Fatigue.” At the end of the session, some attendees were so kind as to share their most important takeaways. There were some truly insightful observations. Below is a summary of their insightful observations:

• Good and enough sleep is key. Chances are that you need more of it. We need to go through four to six sleep cycles (seven to nine hours) to get the full benefits of light, deep and REM sleep.
• You can develop habits to increase the quantity and quality of your sleep. These include not drinking alcohol or caffeine in the hours leading up to bedtime, quitting smoking and eating minimally processed foods.
• Napping and sleeping in are not signs of laziness. Listening to our bodies and resting as needed is both a healthy and responsible choice. Allow yourself to sleep in on your days off to reduce your sleep deficit.
• Power naps of 10 to 20 minutes allow you to awaken refreshed after a light sleep, while 90-minute naps are long enough to go through one full light-deep-light-REM sleep cycle. Waking up from a 30- to 80-minute nap will probably catch you during deep sleep, which will leave you groggy for a while.
• Set the alarm for the time when you need start winding down to sleep. Maintaining a regular sleep schedule will align your sleep with your circadian rhythm, allowing you to wake up when you are fully rested without an alarm.
• • Fatigue is not just about sleep; many factors affect how alert we are. Sleep and fatigue management need a holistic response. 
• Positive behaviors, positive relationships, sleep, nutrition and exercise all contribute to your state of alertness. These are the five keys to wellness.
• You can learn to recognize when you’re fatigued along with identifying tools to better manage it. NAFMP has great resources.
• Fatigue management is not a priority but a value. 

You can get the entire slide deck from the information session, including the full results of the post-session survey, at www.nafmp.org/webinars. Thank you to all who participated and to those who contributed to the above observations.