Don’t Let Drowsy Driving Put You in Danger 11 Ways to Avoid Driving While Sleep-Deprived

Have you driven under the influence – of fatigue? More than half of Americans drive while sleep-deprived and a third have fallen asleep behind the wheel, according to the National Sleep Foundation (NSF). Even worse, 100,000 crashes result from drowsy driving each year. To mark Sleep Awareness Week (March 5-11), check out these 11 tips to avoid this driving danger... Drowsy driving accounts for one in every six deadly crashes, according to the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety (AAAFTS). Yet most tired drivers are clueless about how sleepy they really are. Half of drivers who fell asleep and crashed felt only “somewhat sleepy” or “not at all sleepy” just before the crash, an AAAFTS study found. “When you skimp on sleep, over time you start losing self-awareness,” says Meeta Singh, M.D., a sleep specialist at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. Being sleep-deprived slows reaction times, impairs vision, leads to bad judgment and causes your brain to process information more slowly, says Marc Schlossberg, M.D., director of the National Rehabilitation Hospital Sleep Lab in Washington, D.C. Sleep deprivation also ups your odds of falling into a 3- to 4-second “microsleep” – and if someone cuts you off during these mini-dozes, you wouldn’t be able to react quickly, he says. Read on for 11 ways to stay alert and alive behind the wheel. Drowsy driving tip #1: Heed the warning signs. When you’re sleepy, you’re also more likely to drift across lanes or the rumble strip, to tailgate other cars or to fly through stop signs or red lights, according to DrowsyDriving.org, a National Sleep Foundation website. Here are other red flags, according to Gianluca Tosini, Ph.D., director of the Circadian Rhythms and Sleep Disorders Program at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta: Trouble with focusing on the road or signs Blinking a lot Having heavy eyelids Not being able to keep your head up Yawning repeatedly Daydreaming excessively Feeling irritable or aggressive Being unable to remember the last few miles you drove or last exit you passed. Drowsy driving tip #2: Get a good night’s sleep. Being sleep-deprived can cause significant impairment, researchers say. In fact, staying awake for more than 20 hours is similar to being legally drunk, with a blood-alcohol concentration of .08%, a landmark 2000 Australian study found. And people who sleep 6-7 hours a night are twice as likely to be involved in a crash as those who sleep 8 hours, according to an AAAFTS study. To fall and stay asleep at night, the NSF offers these tips: Use the bed only for sleep and sex. Avoid daytime napping, unless you need a short nap to stay alert while driving. Get rid of the TV and computer in the bedroom. Go to bed and get up at the same time every night, including weekends. Exercise in the late afternoon. Avoid alcohol and smoking. Don’t drink caffeinated beverages or eat heavy meals within three hours of bedtime. Keep your bedroom cool, dark and quiet. Drowsy driving tip #3: Pay back your sleep debt. If you’re chronically sleep-deprived, it may take a few months to return to a natural sleep pattern, according to a 2010 study conducted at the division of sleep and chronobiology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia. Continually skimping on sleep can add up, and make you as groggy as if you'd missed several full nights of shut-eye, according to a 2003 study by the same team. Although you can’t catch up in one marathon snooze, tacking on an extra hour or two of sleep per night may help. Drowsy driving tip #4: Respect your circadian rhythm. Your body has an internal biological clock, or circadian rhythm, that tells you when you’re sleepy and makes your body temperature rise or fall, Singh says. Morning people who go to bed at 11 p.m. and rise at 6 a.m. tend to be more alert in the morning and experience a lull in the mid afternoon, Singh says. Night owls who hit the sack at 1 a.m. and rise at 9 a.m. usually feel more alert in the early afternoon and drowsier in the early evening hours, she says. Can a morning person become a night person and vice versa? “Some people can switch, and light therapy and melatonin [a natural hormone that influences the sleep cycle] can help,” she says. “But most people are hard-wired one way or the other.” Drowsy driving tip #5: Don’t drive when you’d normally be sleeping or napping. Most crashes or near-misses occur between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m., according to DrowsyDriving.org. Shift workers have twice the risk of car accidents, because they’re already likely to be sleep-deprived and they’re getting off work when most car accidents occur, according to a 2009 Harvard Medical School study. How can you stay safe with one of these jobs? Take naps at work, walk or exercise during breaks, and use public transportation or carpools (with alert drivers) instead of driving yourself home, the NSF says. Drowsy driving tip #6: Take a short nap. Napping increases alertness and improves brain function, according to a 2007 Greek European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) Study on 24,000 people conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health. The minute you feel sleepy while driving, pull into a rest stop or another safe place and take a nap, advises Qanta Ahmed, M.D., a sleep specialist with Winthrop University Hospital Sleep Disorders Center in New York. Just keep it short. “A brief nap works better than a long one,” Schlossberg says. “If you go to sleep and wake up in a light stage of sleep, you’ll feel more refreshed than if you sleep longer and wake up from deep sleep, which can make you feel ‘sleep drunk.’” Drowsy driving tip #7: Experiment with caffeine. Before relying on a jolt of caffeine to keep you awake at the wheel, be sure you know how you respond to it, Schlossberg says. Stopping for a cup of coffee might help some people who feel sleep-deprived, but for others, it won’t have much of an effect, according to a 2010 study at Bristol University in Britain. Research on 379 people found that those who drank coffee were no more alert than those who didn’t. “If you have a long-term response, it will help you stay awake,” Schlossberg says. “If you have a short-term response, it will wear off quickly and give you rebound sleepiness, and you’d be better off not relying on it at all.” Drowsy driving tip #8: Take a break every 100 miles or two hours. As soon as you feel drowsy, or at least every two hours or 100 miles, get out of the car and walk around, stretch, get something to eat or drink, or take a brisk walk to refresh yourself, advises Drowsydriving.org. Not only will you feel peppier, you'll reduce the risk of getting blood clots in your legs, Schlossberg says. Opening the window or turning on the radio won’t take the place of a break, he adds. “Any new stimulus will increase alertness, but once you get used to it, it won’t work anymore.” Also, don’t expect rumble strips – raised lane dividers meant to shake your car when you drive over them – to jolt you awake. If you’re already in microsleep, running over one won’t wake you up fast enough to improve your reaction time, says Robert Oexman, director of the Sleep to Live Institute in Joplin, Mo. Drowsy driving tip #9: Take a friend along for the ride. Having a buddy with you on long-distance drives can halve your risk of being involved in a sleep-related accident, according to Drowsydriving.org. Just make sure your friend can drive, so he or she can switch off. Drowsy driving tip #10: Don’t drive when you’re jet-lagged. Having jet lag when you’re sleep-deprived is a double whammy when driving. Jet lag, the condition that results when you fly to a new time zone, not only causes sleepiness and fatigue on landing, but also triggers memory and learning problems long after people return to a regular schedule, a 2010 study at University of California, Berkeley found. Jet lag is worse when you fly east (from Los Angeles to New York or Europe), especially if you’re coming off a long-distance flight that crosses two or more time zones. Your body needs one day to recover for every time zone you cross, so avoid driving until your circadian rhythm is back in sync. On arrival, take public transportation or have someone pick you up at the airport instead of driving yourself, Oexman says. Drowsy driving tip #11: Don’t mix booze and certain meds with driving. Alcohol makes you drowsier and should never be consumed before driving. But many medications are also sedating – including sleeping pills, tranquilizers like Valium and Prozac, tricyclic antidepressants like Tofranil, Elavil and Pamelor, and even over-the-counter antihistamines and cold medications like Dramamine, Benadryl, Vicks NyQuil and Alka-Seltzer Plus Night Cold Medicine. Any of these could make you too sleepy to drive. Play it safe, and avoid all alcohol and sleep-inducing medications if you need to get behind the wheel. For more information, visit our Sleep Health Center. Are You Smart About Sleep? Do you wake up feeling rested on most days of the week, or are you just not a morning person? Getting a good night's sleep affects every aspect of your day, including your mood and your ability to be productive. And if that doesn't get your attention, listen up: Your sleep habits can even affect the number on the scale.