Show Your Drivers You Care! Put a Healthy Trucking Kiosk in Your Terminal
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Quote of the Day
Given our ongoing “Healthy Trucking Initiative” and our health-oriented theme for this issue of Inside Trucking Online, it seems appropriate to run some healthy famous quotes, most of which are deadly serious.
“If you have health, you probably will be happy, and if you have health and happiness, you have all the wealth you need, even if it is not all you want.”
– Elbert Hubbard
“The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don’t want, drink what you don’t like, and do what you’d druther not.”
– Mark Twain
“Health is like money; we never have a true idea of its value until we lose it.”
– Josh Billings
“Health is worth more than learning.”
– Thomas Jefferson
“Getting my lifelong weight struggle under control has come from a process of treating myself as well as I treat others in every way.”
– Oprah Winfrey
“To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals.”
– Benjamin Franklin
Sleepless in America
Before Thomas Edison invented the light bulb in 1880, people slept an average of 10 hours a night. Now Americans average just 6.9 hours of sleep on weeknights and 7.5 hours on weekends, compared to the recommended seven to eight hours of sleep. When you fail to get adequate sleep, you expose yourself to risk, says Dr. Greg Belenky, a sleep expert at Washington State University.
Over-the-road truck drivers are among the most sleepless in America.
Lack of sleep affects a person in two main ways. First, it influences day-to-day performance. “You short-change yourself of sleep,” Belenky says, “and you see the effects immediately. You can make a bad decision. You can miss something. Have a moment’s inattention, and you’re off the road.”
Second, lack of sleep causes longer-term effects on health. Inadequate sleep has been linked to weight gain, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart problems, depression and substance abuse.
Two groups of people are lacking in sleep: those who consciously choose to sleep less in order to do more and those who suffer from a sleep disorder. Those in the first category are often proud about how little sleep they “need,” but their needs, in reality, are typically far greater than their claims. Those in the second group, who experience sleep disorders such as insomnia or sleep apnea, should consult their doctor.
Source: Roemer Report. Used with permission.
