Asking For Prayers! REALLY Need Them.

Good points, veterans (Marc, my head is spinning from that 2 week descriptive and I mean, STILL! from the first time you posted about it, lol!).

What I would add here is that there is much insight to be gained into the "nature" of some folks to be "night owls" or otherwise. That might include imbalanced hormones as result of inheritance. Just search using the terms, "cortisol circadian rhythm", "cortisol rhythm", and others as interest dictates from there.

I am just trying to picture the look on my DL & Planner's faces if I introduce this "insight" to them.

I get all this...I honestly do, important to understand limitations, etc. But as an OTR truck driver, expect major variability in rest/sleep periods. Again, we introduced the concept of resilience in another thread...same exact thing applies here. The ideal situation, for some driving from 8AM-6:00PM, sleeping from 10-6...is highly unlikely with any degree of consistency as an OTR trucker.

Good points, veterans (Marc, my head is spinning from that 2 week descriptive and I mean, STILL! from the first time you posted about it, lol!).

What I would add here is that there is much insight to be gained into the "nature" of some folks to be "night owls" or otherwise. That might include imbalanced hormones as result of inheritance. Just search using the terms, "cortisol circadian rhythm", "cortisol rhythm", and others as interest dictates from there.

I am just trying to picture the look on my DL & Planner's faces if I introduce this "insight" to them.

I get all this...I honestly do, important to understand limitations, etc. But as an OTR truck driver, expect major variability in rest/sleep periods. Again, we introduced the concept of resilience in another thread...same exact thing applies here. The ideal situation, for some driving from 8AM-6:00PM, sleeping from 10-6...is highly unlikely with any degree of consistency as an OTR trucker.

G-Town, my take on this is that of a sobering reality. It was prolly the first litmus I applied against potentially negative factors when I started looking at trucking. There's no dearth of sleep research, and plenty in the area of workers who shift sleep schedules, i.e. first responders, nurses, many others..... that demonstrates, I think, that inconsistency, even if shifts sustain for months between changes, is more harmful than just opposing the light/dark cycle.

But I expect trade-offs and in my own consideration of risk-tolerance would accept it. Again, what helped in deciding this was pretty good evidence of many thriving truckers who note the impacts but on balance are living well and writing about it! I believe, too, that only my own experience will inform as to how it'll work for me. I'm willing to give it a good, informed trial.

I've really enjoyed reading this thread. I was surprised to read how much so many of you focus on eating right. Good tips on heating and cooling of your food. I had been reading PackRat's diary and was hoping there was more info on diet and sleep patters, but this kind of helps fill that in for me. I have had high cholesterol and when I did a high fat, low carb diet, my levels spiked. This doesn't happen to everyone, some actually have the opposite happen, but each person is different. What is the general consensus on caffeine for truckers? I personally am very dependent on it and pretty much have a constant intake throughout the day. It seems with varying driving hours and sleep schedules as mentioned here, that one would have to be careful with the caffeine so you aren't wide awake when it comes time to get some shut eye.