Staying Awake At The Wheel

Mat’s Trucking Great Podcast

Host Mat Ireland interviews Dr. Jerome Puryear to discuss the critical dangers of sleep deprivation and microsleeps in the trucking industry

Key takeaways

• Microsleeps occur during the N1 stage of sleep where the brain goes offline while eyes remain open, potentially causing a truck to travel a football field's length without awareness.
• Caffeine acts as an adenosine receptor antagonist, providing only temporary relief from sleepiness without offering restorative benefits.

Main topics

• Microsleep mechanics
• Caffeine and adenosine

Notable quotes

Make your sleep regimen intentional and anchor your wake up time.

Conclusion

The episode serves as a vital warning that proactive, intentional slee

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:01) Hello and welcome to Matt's Truck and Grape podcast. Matt Arden is sitting here once again. Now the subject we're going to talk about today is sleep and tiredness. And I am pretty certain, I'll put money on it, that any truck driver out there who says that they have not driven tired is lying. We've all been there. We've all done it. We know it's not right. And the levels that we do it at can vary an awful lot. So, we're going to have a bit of a chat with Dr. Jerome Perrier, who's studied the subject and knows an awful lot more than what I do. So, Jerome, it's lovely to meet you. How are you? Speaker 1 (0:36) Fantastic to be here. Thank you for inviting me. Speaker 2 (0:38) Jolly good. So, what's your background? I mean, do you have any sort of transport-related backgrounds with the Speaker 1 (0:44) transport industry where you are? I think my closest background is I have several family members who are truck drivers, and so I have a soft spot, I think, for that. My other background, my medical background is I'm Speaker 2 (0:57) an Speaker 1 (0:57) interventionalist. I'm a board certified in obesity medicine and health and wellness coaching. And so I published a lot of books on health and wellness and prevention. I think one of the things that got me interested in this topic was, as I discussed in my letter to the reader in the book, is that there was an accident that happened on my way to work. It was around six o'clock in the morning. It was pretty dark outside. I was on the highway. I think the speed limit was 70, 75 or something like that. And I noticed that there was an 18 wheeler that was veering off the road. And I didn't I wasn't sure if he was falling asleep or exactly what was happening. But he veered off the road and he corrected himself. He continued and then he veered off the road again. And I knew then that there was a problem. And so I had to make a decision whether I was going to try to pass him or not. And I decided I didn't have time because we had covered too much ground and he was going very fast and I didn't have the capability of passing him where I was. And so I realized that we were approaching a rest stop and, you know, the rest stop was full at the time. And there were 18 wheelers on the side of the rest stop because it was full. And he veered off one more time and he hit the other 18th wheeler in the back. and it was a huge collision. You know, debris was everywhere. I had to make a sudden switch of lanes, if you will, to the other lane so that all his debris from the truck wouldn't hit. And there was another car on the other side of me that was doing the same thing, trying to get out of the way. And I just realized that event, along with some other events that I've seen in the morning, and I hear on the news all the time, early morning accidents. And many times you can't identify that sleep. or having microsleeps was the issue, but many times it is. And I say that because sleep disorders are something that are very common and not very well diagnosed. Many Americans particularly go underdiagnosed with sleep-related disorders, and that's for a variety of different reasons. But I think what brought me to this is that that one particular episode, and then I too had a sleep disorder that I didn't realize. And I know other people that have sleep disorders that, you know, they don't realize either. And it's something that we need to bring a conversation to in general, to the general public, I think, but also to truck drivers specifically, because they are much like other industries, either in transportation or healthcare. We all work a variety of different shifts, you know, in healthcare as physicians, we work, you know, in ER, radiology, you know. We work a variety of shifts and shift work is a part of everybody's life. Even if you are. a new parent you have shift work because you have a newborn that's there that's that's you know requires attention in the middle of the night you have to get up your sleep is interrupted you know whether it's work or any other activity we there are periods in our lives where we you know where we are a shift worker um and we have to adapt and the best way possible absolutely Speaker 2 (4:08) and i think what's highlighted there as well is the fact that the rest area is full now we get a lot of that in the uk and europe so We don't know for certain whether this guy had previously tried to stop because he knew he was tired or more often is the case that you just try to ignore it and power through because of the pressures of the job, of the industry, which is going to be the same in your medical profession, especially in an ER environment. You're under pressure because it's an emergency response. Time is of the essence. And if you're tired, your judgment's getting impaired. This can have serious consequences on a life contract, the same as a truck driver who's tired. under pressure to get to point B with that load, and he's just pushing it and pushing it, or she, I should add, to that breaking point where something's got to give. And it's not a good situation, but it's just a global issue. It happens worldwide. It doesn't just happen in UK, Europe, America. It's Australia. It's going to be South America. Everywhere has this issue. And like you say, it's very important that it's recognised, acknowledged. We're never going to stop it, essentially, are we? You're never going to stop people driving tired. But as you said, if people have got sleeping disorders and things like that, simple ways perhaps to maybe identify if they've got these going on is ideal. And I know from my own personal experience, I mean, I did 14 years of nights working for Trans Am. Speaker 2 (5:30) And it's not like a show can go on the day after. If you're taking a rock gig to the next place, you have to get there. And as much as I love the job, it can be damn hard. And staying awake and making yourself stay awake, it can be a real Speaker 1 (5:47) challenge. Right. And I would say that even in medicine, there are many times where I had a night call and it was the same thing. I mean, you work all day, you get up in the middle of the night, you have to go in at two or three in the morning, you haven't had any sleep. And then you are in a position where how do you how do you stay awake? Speaker 2 (6:04) And Speaker 1 (6:04) so, you know, many times you find yourself, at least I found myself having episodes of microsleep, you know, where your brain kind of shuts down. You lose awareness. You know, it's kind of a temporary lapse in attention or we're dispossessing of the sound and sight. And you, you know, are in a position where you're falling asleep. And this is why a lot of accidents do happen. in the early mornings. And you have the, I think part of the key is to realize one, that you have to be aware of what's happening. If your eyelids feel heavy, if you have, you know, you start blinking very slowly, you started nodding or jerking, uh, zoning out, really, those are usually symptoms of signs that, you know, you're, you're entering a period of micro sleep. And, you know, when you're traveling on the, if you're a truck driver and you're traveling on the road, um, 60, 70 miles per hour, you can get a pretty good distance in a very short timeframe that could really be devastating to people around you. Speaker 2 (7:06) And Speaker 1 (7:06) so it's very important to one, recognize that and take the appropriate action that you need to take, which is really the pull over, get some sleep, at least in the short term. And in the long term, it's more important to have a sleep regimen that is specific to you. so that you are able to plan accordingly and not get yourself in those positions. Speaker 2 (7:29) Yeah, absolutely. So you've just used the term microsleep a few times there. Can you sort of just go into it in a bit more detail? Because I know that we as truck drivers have kind of heard of it, but we're probably not really aware of what exactly a microsleep sort of is as a definition. Speaker 1 (7:46) Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's those times when your brain really just shuts down. It really goes offline. And you kind of shift into a very, very light sleep. But your eyes remain open at the same time. And so you lose awareness. You lose, you know, responsiveness. You know, you have lapse in attention. Your memory just goes blank. I think we've all kind of been there at some point in time. And you may try to roll the window down. You may try to get brief periods of air or try to do other things to try to keep yourself awake. But, you know, you're basically going into sleep. Speaker 1 (8:21) and to a very light stage, what we call N1 stage of sleep. And so it's important to recognize that. And it's a very, very, it can be very devastating if you're traveling with an 18-wheeler, given the force and the weight of that vehicle, and traveling as fast as you are down the road. You can travel, you know, I would say within... five or six seconds, which micro-sleep may last that long or longer, you can probably travel a football field or a football field and a half that distance. And that's a long distance. That's a lot of people that could be on the road that could be in harm's way. So I think it's important to take action. Speaker 2 (9:03) Yeah, oh, absolutely. And it's, again, I think everybody's been there. It's kind of, as you said earlier, when you just zone out and all of a sudden you just sort of... come around a little bit and you're like oh hang on i don't remember the last 30 set whatsoever and then you you sort of recognize that you're tired but then it's a case of whether you actually do something about it or not and as you say you can cause an awful lot of damage and i always remember i think there's a policeman or someone like that saying a tired driver essentially is worse than a drunk or drug driver because at least if they if they're under the influence they will try and avoid an accident or swerve break something like that whereas if you're tired and your eyes have gone, you're not going to do anything, are you, other than plow into stuff that's potentially stationary in front of you. And I know, sadly, a friend of mine who's no longer with us, he did just that. He fell asleep at the wheel, hit a car, and killed two or three people. I can't remember now. And sadly, he ended up going to jail for it as a consequence. But again, he was driving too tired, and he shouldn't have been. Speaker 1 (10:04) Right, right. If you have periods where you're yawning repeatedly, you have difficulty keeping your eyes open, And, you know, if you notice that you don't remember the last exit that you just passed, you know, if you feel like, you know, you're, you know, the most important thing is, is that, you know, one of the, not the most important thing, but one of the things is if you start drifting in your lanes and you start hearing, I don't know, I don't know where in Ireland they have this, but in the United States, they have these things on the road where you start drifting, it starts making noise that you're. Right, that you're not in the right lane. And so I think when you start doing that and hearing that and observing that, it's important to know that, hey, I'm falling asleep. I need to do something to protect myself and protect the other people on the road. Speaker 2 (10:49) Absolutely. And one other piece of technology that's coming out and I believe has now been made compulsory that you cannot turn off is we've got lane departure system warnings, which are great. on the motorway for a lot of the work like I do and a lot of rural people do it becomes a bit of a pain because it will go off even just because we're a big truck on a small road so most of the time drivers just push that button and turn it off so the chances are you can have this technology on the road and you turn it off on a motorway and if you're departing your lane the truck's not telling you even though you it knows that you are so I would certainly say if you've got that technology on the motorway you want to keep it on rather than turning it off. It's there for safety's sake at the end of the day. Speaker 1 (11:32) Indeed. Indeed, I would agree. Speaker 2 (11:34) Yeah, absolutely. So that's going to be coming into all European trucks. It's already in, but like I say, I believe it's going to be made that you cannot turn it off. So it's one of them things. But also things like caffeine and energy drinks, good or a bad thing? Speaker 1 (11:54) Well, I think it... I think it depends. Yeah. I think we need to be aware of what our intake is of caffeine and energy drinks. You know, I'm always looking on the cans to see how much caffeine is in some of the energy drinks. Yeah. Because I think they can, you know, cause, they can be beneficial, but they