17 Tips for Truckers How to Get the Sleep They Need

by Kogler PR Team

When you are a truck driver you are dealing with many challenges. One of which is sleeping. It is essential that truckers can get quality sleep before they hit the road. There have been a ton of different regulations and statutes put in place to prevent truck drivers from getting fatigued while they are on the road.

If a driver isn’t properly rested, the results can be devastating for the driver and others on the road. If getting good quality sleep is an issue for you as a professional truck driver take a look at the tips we think will help, and choose what will work best for you.

DON’T DRIVE WHEN YOU ARE TOO EXHAUSTED
Yes, everyone will tell you this. But the reason it’s not just because that you will be in an accident. Being too exhausted will not help you fall asleep actually will keep you awake for longer. Because your body is tired but your mind it’s overly active. 

Try to stop at a regular time each night for sleep, if you’re able.
This helps you create a routine and stabilize your internal clock for sleep. It can help put your body and mind into sleep mode.

Tips to get decent sleep in your truck:
Since it’s a truck cabin and it’s more difficult to fall asleep you should try to stimulate a nice sleep environment as much as you can. And these tips will help you with that.

  1. Good Mattress (Most important thing to invest in our lives)
  2. Good quality pillow 
  3. Cabin Purifier (Fresh air is very important for sleeping and open hatch can bring extra noise to your cabin)
  4. Be sure your sleep area is tidy so you don’t trip over something if you need to get up through the night
  5. Have a hot shower before bed. This will help relax your muscles.
  6. Tea 15 min before sleep time (always choose the once that are decaf like nettle, lavender, rooibos etc. combination of sleeping tea)
  7. Don’t consume caffeine 6+ hours before your bedtime (this includes coffee, energy drinks, green/black tea etc.)
  8. White Noise or Sleep App (try using ‘white noise’ device or phone app will do also good there are plenty of podcasts that have hours of different white noise sounds.
  9. Earplugs or noise-reducing headphones
  10. Play low-key, chill music 
  11. Limit screen time ( Don’t be on your phone, tablet, computer for at least 30 min before you want to be sleeping)
  12. Meditation is also a great way yo quit your busy mind after a long and hectic day
  13. It light if you must eat or your last meal to be 2-3 hours before sleeping
  14. Nightie routine/ritual (this helps to train your brain that when you do those things you are preparing the body to sleep and it will not work from first try it needs to be constantly used for one month)
  15. Make your cabin dark. Little light can mess up with your brain and not allow you to get a decent rest
  16. Make the cabin cooler it’s proven to help with falling asleep
  17. Maybe reducing your drinks few hours before your bedtime will help with bathroom trips through the night

Track your sleeping with sleep analyzers. FitBit helped me with knowing how I sleep at the beginning but now I use Garmin, also a very good gadget to track your sleeping. 

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