If you think about it, the words ‘OTR truck driver’ and ‘good night’s sleep’ are rarely used in the same sentence together. For the most part, sleeping in a truck all night is not naturally conducive to deep, heavy sleep.
Rarely will you see a truck driver spring out of a semi cab on a crisp winter morning, looking well-rested and suitably energized, boasting of how they slept like a baby.
That’s not to say it never happens, but it does seem as though there are two extremes when it comes to truck driver sleeping, and as a trucker, you probably fall into one of them: those who spend half the night tossing, turning, and praying to the trucker Gods for a decent bit of shut-eye, and those who will indeed sleep like the proverbial baby.
It’s an aspect of trucker life that lacks middle ground, and if you are a new trucker, it is pretty much a coin toss about which extreme you will fall into, regardless of how well you sleep at home.
Thankfully, however, it is fixable, and we will show you how.
Routine
This is a problem that exists mostly for ‘over the road’ truckers (or OTR, for short), who spend days or weeks away from the comfort of their home bedroom, although regional drivers must also deal with sleeping in a truck from time to time.
For anyone who does have a hard time with truck sleeping, the problem usually stems from a shift in our natural routine. Humans are creatures of habit, and for many people, anything that disturbs our ‘normal’ routine can have knock-on effects in various ways: one of which is how well we sleep.
Solutions
Fortunately, all is not lost, and it can be corrected. If you do have trouble sleeping in the truck and are unable to enjoy a well-earned rest, there are a few things you can do that will greatly improve your chances of successfully hitting the hay.
And we are not just talking about counting sheep, although, if that helps, more power to you.
Through this blog post, we are going to suggest 10 things that will help you achieve a far better night’s sleep. One or two of the suggestions might be a little obvious (although you would be surprised how commonly overlooked they are), while a few of them might be things you have never tried before but probably should.
Either way, this blog post aims to help with your truck sleeping woes. But first, we should state a few truck sleeping essentials that will help you avoid extreme levels of drowsiness.
Main Steps to Combat Drowsiness
Get Sufficient Rest
Always aim for a minimum of seven hours of slumber every night. Inadequate or disturbed sleep is a primary culprit behind tiredness when driving, and anything less than six or seven hours will contribute to that.
Abstain From Alcohol
This is quite an obvious one that you almost certainly do not need reminding of, but let’s put it out there anyway: consuming alcoholic drinks can, of course, lead to sleepiness. Driving a truck post-alcohol consumption is a strict no-no.
Review Your Medications
Certain drugs can enhance feelings of drowsiness, so make sure you inspect the labels of your medications for any potential side effects. In most cases, your healthcare professional can suggest alternative meds that do not come with drowsy side effects.
Caffeine Is Your Friend
Consider indulging in a cup of coffee (or another caffeine-rich beverage) for that welcome jolt of momentary energy when you need it. Caffeine isn’t a long-term solution for fatigue and doesn’t replace genuine rest, but it will help occasionally.
The trick is to abstain from coffee for a few days and only drink it when you need to. If you can, avoid that daily first-morning cup and treat coffee more as a weapon in your truck-driving armory than a habit.
Do not consume any caffeine 6 hours before bedtime, though.
Short Bursts of Sleep
A brief 20-minute ‘power nap’ can work wonders in firing up your energy levels. When exhaustion hits, find a secure spot to park and indulge in a well-earned sleep. Set a timer for 20 to 30 minutes to ensure you don’t oversleep.
Short naps provide a whole list of fatigue-busting benefits, such as improved cognitive function and the restoration of alertness, all while resetting your reaction times.
10 Tips For Better Truck Sleeping
Now, let’s take a look at more specific tips and tricks for sleeping in a truck. Again, most of these tips apply to OTR truckers who have actual truckers sleeping quarters and spend regular nights away from home.
local and regional drivers can also benefit should they spend the occasional night away from home.
- Select the Right Parking Spot: The choice of your resting place greatly affects your sleep quality. Ramp parking might seem like a bright idea at the time, but if you are going to spend half the night worrying about someone hitting your trailer, you are not going to sleep too great.
Always avoid sleeping on road shoulders and on-ramps, which are a possible safety threat and could lead to fines. For the best truck driver sleeping conditions, aim for truck stops, travel plazas, designated rest zones, or private parking (more on that towards the end of this guide)
- Improve Your Sleeping Area: Given that sleeping in a truck is part of your daily life, investing in your semi truck sleeping area (or whatever rig you are driving) is a wise move. A luxurious pocket-sprung mattress or a nice latex topper can make an incredible difference to your sleep.
Expensive? Yes. But so very worth it. Especially if it means increased sleeping hours each week. A high-quality mattress can make a remarkable difference to that.
- Personalize Your Bedding: Although truckers sleeping quarters may never match the homely comfort of your own bedroom, a touch of customization can make a surprising difference.
Consider upgrading to plush pillows or duck-down bedding. Weighted blankets can be particularly therapeutic, proving helpful for many truckers who use them.
- Ensure Darkness with Shades: There are times when truckers need to rest during daylight hours or maybe under glaring depot lights. Installing curtains or shades can keep your truck sleeping environment dim, signaling to your body that it’s bedtime.
For those stubborn rays of light, an eye mask might be a worthy addition to your bag of sleeping tricks.
- Noise Control: The hustle and bustle of the outside world can easily penetrate the walls of your semi-truck sleeping area. Combat these disruptive noises by using foam earplugs or trying a white noise app.
They actually do work very well for most truckers who have tried them, forming a digital barrier against outside noise, including barking dogs, beeping horns, and loud chatter.
- Keep Devices Away: To ensure a peaceful rest, switch your phone off or use the silent feature. For urgent matters, assign certain contacts as “priority,” so their calls or texts can still reach you.
- Limit Pre-Sleep Screen Time: The stimulating blue light emanating from our screens hinders the secretion of melatonin, our sleep-inducing hormone. Swap your nightly scroll with more sleep-friendly activities, like reading a magazine or a good book. It makes a difference, really.
- Start a Sleep Ritual: When the day’s trucking is over, and you are preparing for a sound sleep in your truck, sticking to a nightly routine signals your brain that it is time to unwind.
Simple rituals, whether it’s cleansing your face, slipping into pajamas, or brushing your teeth, can become cues that prompt a restful night in the truck’s sleeping quarters.
- Don’t Push Yourself: Pushing yourself to the brink of exhaustion on the road might lead to a deceptive ‘second wind’ type of feeling, but will not help you later in the day when it is time to sleep.
This unnaturally forced state masks your attention and slows reflexes, making potentially lethal and unexpected micro-sleeps likely. Even if you feel alert, your actual performance is compromised. For the safety of everyone on the road, recognize and respect your body’s limits.
- Mind Your Night-Time Nourishment: For many truckers, staying awake requires a little ingenuity, and as noted earlier, caffeine can really help. However, you need to regulate caffeine consumption. That mid-afternoon energy boost is a potential sleep disruptor come nighttime if you go too overboard.
By the same token, truck drivers should steer clear of rich or spicy evening meals and curb nicotine use before bedtime. This one, in particular, makes a huge difference. So many truckers eat immediately before bed, and it is a terrible practice for so many reasons, including sleep.
Why Good Sleep Matters For Truck Drivers
Obviously, sleep matters for everyone. But there are certain professions and occupations that could lead to dangerous situations if a good night’s rest has not been had the night before.
For example, doctors, pilots, train drivers, and law enforcement officers (to name only a few) all require good sleep routines in order to perform professional duties safely. Truck drivers probably sit near the top of that list, second only to pilots.
Skimping on sleep doesn’t only result in truck driver drowsiness, however. It has lasting effects on overall wellness, both mentally and physically.
Physical Well-being
Alarmingly, and according to various studies and reports, almost 70% of long-haul truckers struggle with obesity, together with an elevated risk of high blood pressure and diabetes.
Lengthy sedentary hours coupled with scarce access to exercise and wholesome food are the obvious factors here and always have been in this industry.
Sleep deprivation only serves to exacerbate the issue. A poor night’s sleep, coupled with any other possible health issues, could equal a potential timebomb for some truckers. While these other health factors can be addressed, they take time to fix – usually through diet, exercise, and medication.
Sleep, however, is something that your average truck driver can remedy immediately by making a few adjustments here and there and improving sleep patterns right away.
Drivers and Drowsiness
Factors like nighttime driving can naturally induce feelings of sleepiness, making droopy eyelids while driving a real concern. Combine this with extensive stretches of road, and you’ve set the stage for sleep-deprived driving.
But there’s more. Truckers face cramped spaces, scanty access to healthy meals, limited mobility, and even subpar bedding. Proper healthcare? Another challenge on the long-haul road.
As a truck driver, if you can find a way to improve your sleep – using any of the methods suggested in this blog post – we really encourage you to do so. A solid 7 or 8 hours of deep, comfortable, undisturbed rest will put a real dent in those awful feelings of sleepiness during late and long stretches of driving.
Safe & Secure Truck Parking
We did mention this briefly as our first tip, but this is a point that definitely needs discussing in a little more detail because, without a good parking spot, all other efforts at having a solid night’s sleep could be rendered useless.
In other words, none of the previously suggested tips are going to help you if your overnight parking spot is a poor one. Good parking is the absolute key to a good night’s rest.
That is where we can help you, and we will get to that. But first, why is your truck parking spot so important?
Finding Good Parking Is Becoming Harder
If it seems like there are more trucks on the road these days, that’s because there are. Way more, In fact. With just under 14 million trucks (weighing over 10,000 pounds) registered in the US, there is a notable increase from just a decade or two ago.
That’s a lot of trucks, and they all need a parking spot.
Couple that with increasingly crowded freight corridors and a surging increase in freight movement, and you have a real problem when it comes to truck parking.
Never-Ending Lot Circling
In years gone by, truck parking was never a serious issue. Seasoned drivers would usually highlight truck parking spots in an atlas and keep an old notepad full of handwritten notes on good spots to park. It was simple, effective, and without worry.
Those days are now gone, as most rest stops and travel plazas are full by late afternoon, and even more risky parking spots, such as exit ramps, are ‘nose to tail’ at certain times of the day.
Truck drivers seem to spend half of the day nervously keeping one eye on the clock as they worry about finding a good place for sleeping in the truck, hoping to avoid a dreaded HOS violation.
Arriving at a truck spot past 4 or 5 pm usually leads to endlessly circling the lot, hoping to get lucky with a spot that no one else has noticed.
The situation is far from ideal, to say the least.
Where Do Truckers Sleep?
So, with the problem only growing worse, where do truck drivers sleep these days? With truck spots so constantly full and even Walmarts often at capacity, many drivers turn to more risky parking spots, such as highway ramps.
Aside from being dangerous, this often leads to law enforcement angrily rapping the driver’s window at ungodly hours, waking drivers from their well-earned slumber.
But it gets worse. Many drivers are now taking a chance on private land, bridge underpasses, and even secluded or remote areas: none of which are safe, and some of which are illegal.
Simple & Effective Solution
You know, It really doesn’t have to be quite so difficult.
By using Truck Parking Club, drivers can now stop worrying about truck parking and put an end to the endless search for suitable, safe, and comfortable spots.
Our user friendly online platform places property owners who have secure parking available, with truckers in need of reliable parking: all in real-time.
Truckers now have a range of parking options all over America – displayed live on an interactive map – meaning no more stressful circling parking lots or racing against the clock.
You simply browse, book, and secure your space either in advance or on the spot. It’s completely effortless, and with rates starting at $8 per night, it’s also great value.
Tailored Amenities
With Truck Parking Club, drivers also have instant access to handy information about each parking location’s amenities. From well-lit areas and security systems to repair shops, truck washes, restrooms, and eating facilities, drivers now have the power to choose what suits them best.
Peace of Mind
Truck Parking Club ensures that your reserved spot is truly yours when you arrive. Real-time availability tracking guarantees that your chosen spot will be ready and waiting without argument.
Plus, every listed location is internally vetted for your safety and convenience. With Truck Parking Club, you can trust that your rest break will truly be restful.
Bottom Line
By making a little extra effort, it is possible to achieve a good night’s rest while out on the road. You deserve it, after all, and so you should do everything within your power to achieve it.
That includes securing a safe parking spot – without too much effort.
Don’t let parking hassles overshadow your hard work on the road. Join Truck Parking Club today and enjoy the sheer freedom of secure, convenient, and hassle-free parking.
The information published herein is for general informational purposes only. Truck Parking Club does not make any representations or warranties about the completeness, reliability, legality, and accuracy of this information. Any reliance placed on such material is strictly at the user’s own risk. Truck Parking Club shall not be responsible for any losses or damages incurred in connection with the information published herein.
