How to Protect Yourself From Daytime Sleepiness on Your Commute and at Work

Working-class America has a dangerous problem on its hands: As we squeeze more into our days—work, families, gym memberships, full social calendars, and longer commutes—we're becoming more sleep-deprived, which can cause problems on the job or during the ride home.

"Sleep has always been considered negotiable," says Ralph Downey III, PhD, chief of sleep medicine at Loma Linda University Medical Center in California. “Our activities are priorities over sleep until it's too late—and we drive off the road.”

Jaime Marrero, 48, of Manati, Puerto Rico, knows this all too well. "I've woken up from the sound of my wheels on road markers on several occasions," says the former applications engineer, a dad who used to endure a 55-mile commute. "At work, I'd fall asleep in seminars. A peer would kick me to keep me awake." (Marrero was diagnosed with sleep apnea five years ago, and a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine has since eliminated his problems.)

Does sleepiness affect your commute or workday? Here are four common scenarios.

Drowsy driving
Tired drivers have delayed reaction times, or they doze at the wheel, so driving after a night of poor sleep is a dangerous idea. "One-quarter of people drive fairly sleepy, and a small percentage have wrecks," says David Davila, MD, medical director of the Baptist Health Sleep Center in Little Rock, Ark., and a National Sleep Foundation spokesperson.

Some people have trouble getting home, says Stuart F. Quan, MD, visiting professor of medicine in the division of sleep medicine at Harvard Medical School. "Highway driving is a boring, semiautomatic task. You'd tend to fall asleep."

Missing your stop
Sleepy commuters who use mass transit can inadvertently sleep through their bus or train stops. “The depth of your sleep is the reason you miss the stop,” says Downey. "If you sleep more than 20 minutes, you have slow-wave sleep, which is harder to wake up out of. You have no perception of what's going on in your environment."

There are pros and cons to taking a nap during your commute. "If you're sleep-deprived and you have an hour commute, you made up an hour of sleep," says Downey. But long, late naps can affect your ability to fall asleep at bedtime, causing a cycle of sleep deprivation.

Falling asleep on the job
Take a dimly lit room, add a bland PowerPoint presentation and tired employees, and you've got the perfect setting for unintentional nodding off. "In our brains, we have a sleep drive that's fighting the wake drive, which tries to keep us awake," says Downey. "In a boring meeting, your sleep drive is pushing to come out. There's no stimulus for your wake drive to come out, unless someone shocks you."

Relying on sugar and caffeine
Who, during a sleepy moment, hasn't downed coffee or grabbed chocolate to keep himself attentive? Sugar and caffeine can provide a burst of wakefulness, but it's short-lived. "Sleep eventually wins," says Downey. "Society needs to get to a point where we recognize that we need to sleep instead of buying a Mars bar."