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.
"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.
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.
Adding to woes
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.
For Art Meripol, a magazine travel photographer in Birmingham, Ala., the first night of a business trip is usually the hardest.
Says Meripol: "Maybe that's work anxiety, anticipating the days ahead; maybe just the different bed. Most often I end up with a remote in my hand watching TV later than I ever would at home."
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.
"The only thing that keeps me from running out into the hallway naked, ranting and armed with a pair of wire cutters to snip the power cord, is the Transportation Security Administration's insistence that I not travel with snips in my carry-on luggage," Thompson says.
Another of Thompson's sleep strategies: He carries binder clips in his shaving kit to close the "inevitable gap" in the drapes that let light through.
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, lower the volume of the public-address system 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."
Source: Gary Stoller USA Today
