6 Tips for More Restorative Sleep

1. Get the Amount of Sleep You Personally Need

We are used to hearing experts say that most people need between seven and nine hours of sleep per night, but Winter admits some people are genetically wired for less. They can wake fully rested and restored in perhaps six hours with no consequences.

"If you are somebody who genetically needs six or six and a half hours of sleep, you can't sleep eight," Winter says.

"That genetic need for sleep we all carry around is pretty set in stone, and trying to sleep more can lead to incredible frustration."

When someone tells him that they get by on five hours sleep a night, Winter usually puts them into one of two categories. One is the group that needs seven hours, but can deal with five effectively. The other group might need eight hours but tries to function on something less.

"I know a truck driver who rolls his hair up into the window so if is head nods as he's falling asleep, his hair will jerk his head and keep him awake," says Winter. "I tell him he needs to work at getting more sleep. Six hours a night obviously isn't enough for him."

For the six-hour crowd, Winter recommends using the available hours during a rest break not spent sleeping as quiet downtime. 

"Resting is extremely restorative to a body. Meditating, or if you believe in higher powers, it's a great time to pray. Or even just reading or doing quiet activities in a relatively dark environment can be really impactful," he says.

2. Aim for Consistent Sleep Times

Sleep experts realize that consistent sleep and wake times are as important and probably more important than the number of hours we spend in bed. 

In fact, the hours of service rules' 24-hour rotation of 14 hours on-duty and 10 hours off-duty was intended to address regular sleep times. But it doesn't always work out in real life.

"There are real health consequences to sporadic sleep schedules, even if the amounts are correct," he 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."  

Also be mindful of what you eat and when you eat. If you normally eat at fairly regular times, but your shift throws that schedule out of whack, eat something light at the usual time because your body is expecting something.

"If you're 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, hey, I'm just not that hungry for lunch, but this is lunchtime so here's some food. That's better than eating big meals at irregular times."

3. Prepare Your Body for Sleep

It's hard to switch from full on, like when driving, to full off as you prepared to sleep. Since sleep is associated with a lowering of the body's internal temperature, Winter suggests starting to drop the temperature inside the cab and hour or so before bedtime.

Winter says even with sporadic schedules, drivers can coax their bodies and brains to sleep if they follow a plan. 

If you're outdoors, start by trying to imitate the onset of night by wearing blue-blocker sunglasses. Also avoid screen time unless you can dial down the blue light (as with night-time settings found on many devices). If you're indoors or in the truck, close the curtain, dim the lights and read rather than watch TV. Do something that's quiet and relaxing.

4. Get Physical Activity

Exercise could not be more important for a shift worker, Winter says. And he acknowledges it's really difficult to get when you're on the road. 

He suggests some resistance routine 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.

5. Take Regular Naps

Napping is a topic unto itself, and worthy of a lot more words than we have room for here, but Winter says naps can be very valuable for drivers as a drowsiness mitigation strategy when taken appropriately.

"For a truck driver, napping is a very important strategy for playing by the rules and staying safe. But I think you have to be careful with napping," he says.

"For example, if somebody tells me they go to bed every night at 10 o'clock, but it takes four hours to fall asleep, so they often nap during the day to make up for the lost sleep at night, the napping, in that situation, might actually be perpetuating the problems with falling asleep at night."

On the other hand, when you're short on sleep or sleeping irregular hours, even 20 minutes of shut-eye can be very restorative. Many will say that short naps don't work and they often leave them feeling groggy and sleepy. Winter says that's the result of sleep inertia and there are ways to deal with that. 

"Sleep inertia is where an individual sleeps for a longer period of time and tends to feel groggy afterwards," he says. "What's actually happening is rather than just skirting the lighter stage of sleep with a short nap, you descend into a deeper state of sleep with a longer nap that's difficult to awake from."

He recommends taking shorter naps on a regular schedule so the body begins to anticipate the nap. Upon waking, get out into the light as quickly as possible and/or engage in a little light physical activity, like a couple of laps around the truck or some calisthenics.

"Waking after a nap is a great time to get a little something to eat," he says. "If you always terminate your nap with a couple crackers or an apple or something of that nature, your brain starts to understand that when you go from that nap, to eating, warming your body by walking around, it's time to get back to business. 

"All those things tend to help you shake off the effects of that nap much quicker."

6. Recognize When You Have a Problem

If you developed knee pain, you might get yourself a knee brace, or ice the knee, or take a few days off from your jogging routine. But eventually if that pain didn't go away or got worse, you'd go see an orthopedic specialist, or at least talk to your primary care doctor. 

"But when it comes to sleep, I think a lot of people just feel talking about sleep is lazy," Winter says. "You know, 'I've tried sleeping pills and they don't work. There's nothing the doctor can do, so why bother'?

"There are sleep specialists out there that have a lot of great tools and techniques for individuals who are struggling with their sleep that don't necessarily involve sleep studies or elaborate investigations. If you're somebody who's been struggling, just keep that in mind. There's a bunch of us out there who are ready to help."

Chris Winter is also the author of a best-selling book on the subject, "The Sleep Solution: Why Your Sleep is Broken and How to Fix It." It's available from most book retailers and it's also on Audible, so drivers can listen to it while they drive.