It can be challenging to stay healthy when traveling. Even more so when your life is on the road. Living a healthy lifestyle might be difficult due to irregular schedules, erratic traffic, long hours, prolonged periods of inactivity, and a lack of meal options.
The vital labor that long-haul truckers do is essential to a nation’s economy. If the roads and highways are the arteries of a country, truckers are the blood that travels through those veins, delivering nourishment and oxygen to the nation’s body.
This is why the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released this alarming data: Compared to adult workers in the United States, truck drivers are more likely to suffer from a number of chronic illnesses and ailments, including obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure.
So, how do truckers stay healthy and active? Let’s discuss a few tips.
- Drink plenty of water
Maintaining adequate hydration is crucial for preventing sickness. Thirst is a symptom of dehydration, which leads to several ailments. Water is the best option when it comes to staying hydrated.
The Mayo Clinic recommends eight glasses of water daily on average to ensure you’re getting enough. Drinking adequate water has long-term health benefits and strengthens your immune system, which is of the utmost importance for NYC truckers traveling across the country.
- Consume nutritious foods
Consuming a balanced diet is important to strengthen your immune system and provide your body with the vitamins and minerals needed to fend against infectious diseases. Seek foods like fruits, seafood, and green leafy vegetables abundant in vitamin C, iron, and omega-3. Maintaining long-term health and strengthening your immune system depends on a healthy diet. To make eating healthily easier and more comfortable when traveling, have plenty of nutritious snacks.
You can incorporate the following foods into your diet:
- Fruits
- Veggies
- Green beverages
- Consume your vitamins
Getting all the necessary vitamins and nutrients can be a little more difficult when you’re a trucker. To strengthen your immune system and maintain your health, try taking a multivitamin daily. Alternatively, you can select supplements according to your dietary deficiencies.
It can be challenging to get enough Omega-3, mainly if you don’t consume fish. However, the advantages of Omega-3 have been demonstrated to enhance cardiovascular health and prevent or lower the risk of heart attacks, both of which support a more robust immune system.
Additionally, vitamin D is crucial for bolstering our immune systems. However, acquiring enough vitamin D from diet alone might be challenging, particularly if you’re traveling for weeks at a time.
- Make sleep a priority
Our immunological response has been shown to decline when we don’t get enough sleep. Additionally, getting enough sleep is crucial for your health and safety as a truck driver. Furthermore, chronic sleep deprivation might seriously harm your general health. It has been connected to diabetes, obesity, and other conditions that can have a detrimental effect on a truck driver’s health. Getting enough sleep also helps you be vigilant about potential dangers on and off the road.
Stress is frequently the cause of problematic sleep patterns. Spending some time winding down and relaxing before bed might help reduce stress. It’s also crucial to ensure your sleeping location is peaceful and dark.
- Get frequent exercise
Starting an exercise regimen might help you stay healthier and strengthen your body’s defenses against illness. Exercise has long been recognized as a stress-reduction, cardiovascular, and immune-system-boosting activity. There are plenty of options to walk, jog, and perform other exercises to keep in shape when traveling, even though you might not be able to visit the gym.
Maintaining your physical fitness as a truck driver and preventing frequent problems like a driver’s knee can be achieved with just a few minutes of exercise every so often. A 15-minute walk, jog, or 5 minutes of HIIT is a fantastic place to start.
- Give yourself time to heal
If you’re sick, stay at home. This might not be a problem if you drive locally or regionally, but what if you are an OTR driver and become ill 1,500 miles away from home? You could receive a citation, a fine, and points on your CSA score if you are found to be driving while ill.
Therefore, choose a safe parking spot, settle in, and take a break if you feel ill. If your workplace offers health services, make arrangements with them. If not, use a cab or ride-sharing service to drive you to the closest emergency hospital or urgent care center.
- Steer clear of stimulants
Although stimulants like coffee and energy drinks are frequently used to boost energy, particularly when working, staying away from them is preferable. Your health will suffer if you rely too much on these drinks, either by dehydrating you or by providing you with brief energy spikes when you should be sleeping.
Try a kinder, healthier substitute instead, such as green tea. Antioxidants found in green tea strengthen your immune system and improve your body’s ability to fight off disease. It has been demonstrated that antioxidants can help prevent major illnesses, including cancer and heart disease.
- Clean your hands
Before eating, after using the restroom, after coughing, sneezing, or blowing your nose, and after coming into contact with people or items, like when pumping petrol or shaking a customer’s hand. Make sure to use soap and water for at least 20 seconds when washing your hands.
Using hand sanitizer will help limit the germs you come into contact with when you don’t have access to soap and running water. However, keep in mind that hand cleaning is more effective.
In the end!
For individuals who spend so much time delivering the things we need, maintaining good health is crucial to a better, more fulfilling life as a truck driver. The trucking business is a complicated arrangement of cells and bodily reactions, like our immune systems. You owe it to yourself as a truck driver to work for someone who cares about your welfare. When a firm actively works to decrease stress, provide you the space to make decisions, prevent health issues, and plan for unforeseen events, it can significantly impact your ability to stay healthy.