Traveling takes toll on workers
By Gary Stoller
USA Today
Business traveler Sherry Lucas doesn't trust hotels' wake-up calls or their clock radios. The result: She wakes up every hour or two during nights she spends on the road, depriving her of much-needed rest.
The National Sleep Foundation and sleep-deprivation expert David Dinges offer the following sleeping tips for business travelers: • If traveling across time zones, select a flight that arrives in the early evening and go to bed at 10 p.m. local time. • Select a hotel that can offer a quiet, dark room and discuss it with the desk clerk at check-in. • Several days before you leave for a trip across time zones, start getting up and going to bed earlier if you're eastbound; later if you're westbound. • Don't drink alcohol on the flight. • Avoid heavy meals on flights and after you arrive. • Avoid alcohol, tobacco, caffeine and heavy exercise at least three to four hours before bedtime. • Go to bed at the same time every night. • Bring earplugs and blindfolds for sleeping. Draw the drapes to darken the hotel room. • Daylight is a powerful stimulant for regulating the biological clock, so try to get outside whenever possible. • If needed, take a nap of 15 to 45 minutes. Even a 15-minute nap can enhance performance for hours.
"I never oversleep, because I haven't really gotten to sleep in the first place," says the New Jersey financial services consultant who spent about 85 nights in hotels last year.
Sleeping tips for business travelers
Two new surveys confirm that road warriors are getting insufficient sleep. More than a third of adult travelers say they rarely get a good night's sleep while on the road, according to a survey by Radisson Hotels & Resorts and Select Comfort, a bed company.
A British Airways-sponsored survey found nearly a quarter of business travelers have fallen asleep in a meeting. Nearly one in five said they had a presentation go badly or lost business because air travel deprived them of sleep.
But it isn't just the marketing-inspired studies of the travel industry drawing attention to the special problems of road warriors in need of better rest.
"Business travelers experience greater sleep deprivation than the general population," says Darrel Drobnich of the nonprofit National Sleep Foundation.
Some causes of road warriors' sleep deprivation are chronic: jet lag, stress and anxiety of doing business on the road, hotel rooms that are too noisy or not dark enough, sleeping in a strange bed.
But Drobnich and others cite two relatively new contributors to the road warriors' restiveness:
• Tight corporate budgets. "Companies are looking to keep costs down, and business trips have quicker turnaround times than in the past," Drobnich says.
There was a time when a business traveler might have taken a day or two to unwind after a trip, but no longer.
• Post-Sept. 11 security. Earlier check-in times and long security lines add to travel times and tend to wear a traveler down quicker.
The National Sleep Foundation says adults should get seven to nine hours of sleep daily. Research suggests that getting fewer hours on a regular basis can lead to cardiovascular and gastrointestinal problems, Drobnich says. Lack of sufficient sleep affects one's mood, temper, performance and hand-and-eye coordination, he says.
Jeanne Bear, vice president of an Arizona vision care company, says lack of sleep and tiredness make her less productive. The problem is especially acute after arriving for meetings in Europe from the United States, she says.
"At various functions, I have found myself nodding off," she says.
But adequate sleep isn't just a matter of keeping road warriors at their peak. Drowsy travelers can endanger others when they get behind the wheel of a rental car, Drobnich says.
Frequent business travelers interviewed by USA Today acknowledge the sleep problem, and have no shortage of suggestions on ways airlines and hotels could improve things.
"There is absolutely zero reason to vacuum hallways before 8 a.m.," says Eric Thompson, the CEO of a Seattle-based scientific instrument company.
Other suggestions from business travelers: Flight attendants should stop asking questions of passengers who say they want no food. Airlines should widen seats, provide earplugs and provide more heat in the cabin.
Hotels, frequent travelers suggest, should provide instructions for clock radios, curtains that block out light, thicker pillows, high-quality linens, free bottled water for hydration, better thermostats, quieter air conditioning systems and soundproofing against other rooms' plumbing systems.
Road warriors' lack of sleep might continue if they immediately return to work and tackle a busy schedule after a business trip, says David Dinges, a University of Pennsylvania professor and sleep-deprivation expert.
"Travel is wear and tear — it's hazard pay," he says. "People need time to recover — a day or two off to decompress — when they get back."
