Life On The Road
Stress Management
By Phil Madsen
May 19, 2008 - 5:01:25 PM

Experts say the lifestyle demanded by over the road driving jobs is fraught with stress-producing conditions. Irregular sleep, unrealistic delivery schedules, fatigue, poor diet, lack of exercise, and long periods away from family and friends are cited as causative factors in a stress–filled life. But like high blood pressure, stress is a silent villain. Its silence is abetted by the attitudes of some who discount stress as a normal condition, one that is to be expected in order to get the job done. And while a certain amount of stress is normal, even healthy, unrelieved stress and constantly building tension can break down the body’s immune system, cause muscle cramps, and affect quality of sleep in the short term. Over the long term, unrelieved stress is a factor in heart disease, hypertension, stroke, sexual dysfunction, and other ailments. The American Medical Association calls stress the number one cause of preventable disease. The silent villain causes very real physical illnesses.
 

Richard Hawk, owner of Richard Hawk, Inc., in Bridgeton, New Jersey, is a consultant and professional speaker on safety and health issues. Hawk says, “At all levels of the industry, from drivers to executives, there is very little sensitivity to stress as a cause of disease and lost revenues.” Carmen Daecher, President of Daecher Consulting, Inc., who consults with trucking companies about health issues, including stress, finds a low level of awareness about stress among both drivers and executives. “Aside from a few large progressive companies like Schneider Transport, the trucking industry does not understand what the effects of stress cost them in terms of driver turnover and lost time at work, for instance.”   Indeed, the vice president of operations at a major Midwestern fleet recently said he believed stress is not a general problem. "It can be a problem for some individuals. We try to accommodate drivers who come to us with problems.   Our health insurance package makes some provision for mental health.” Nevertheless there is very little formal training or care for stress and its effects in trucking.
 

In this environment the driver is obliged to educate himself and be creative when it comes to managing a stress-filled work and lifestyle. Drivers are not educated to identify stress and understand what they can do to help themselves. “Drivers continue to see the frustrations of the job as something they can do very little about,” Daecher says. Terry White, an owner operator for Hull Trucking in Old Appleton, Missouri, says, “My biggest stressor is pressure. I don’t turn down loads. I have got to work. We’re out here basically working for nothing and that means we have got to run. If dispatch has a load I’m going to take it.” White says he has good days and bad days like everybody else when it comes to frustration. “You live with the pressure and you don’t think about it very much.   It’s just part of the job,” he says.
 

Stress is certainly a part of everyone’s life and work. But stress experts agree managing stress is not about controlling where stress comes from but in controlling our response to it. There may be little you can do to change dispatch’s mind or raise freight rates, but you can learn strategies to deal with the effects of such stressors. Stress management is a technique aimed at giving a person control over his emotions and his physical health.
 

The first step in establishing control, according to Daecher, is to identify the causes of your stress. In a poll conducted by etrucker.com, asking the question “What causes most of your stress?” leading stressors for 522 respondents included fighting traffic, 34%, financial worries, 24%, dealing with dispatch, 16%, lack of home time, 16%, and lack of sleep, 11%. Carl Cushman, a retired owner operator in East Palestine, Ohio, says his stress button is pushed by traffic. “People who cut me off drive me crazy,” Cushman says. Certainly commons stressors like these can be easily identified. But it takes more searching to recognize that a personal problem may be affecting job performance and health.
 

Experts say there are at least eight categories of stress – cognitive, social, family, work, transition, environmental, chemical and physical. Cognitive stress includes attitudes about yourself and others that can create conflict. For example, unrealistic expectations about yourself and others may create disappointment and anger. You may expect to sleep less than is healthy; you may expect your wife to handle the kids without your help. Social stressors can include a change in status in your community or in friendships. The lack of respect shown to truck drivers in general may be a source of stress for those drivers who recognize their true worth to society and cannot reconcile the attitude of the public with the reality.
 

Many stressors are directly linked to change of some kind. Divorce or a birth or death are family changes, while a new dispatcher or an unexpected change in delivery schedule can create stress that may be consciously taken for granted even though it has emotional and physical consequences. Such consequences are generally only found if a person is in the habit of looking for them. Sometimes a person will add more stressors to this mix. He will consume alcohol or drugs. He may drink coffee to excess. Rather than finding a way to pinpoint and deal with stressors, this person has compounded his problems. The only way to directly affect negative stress is to look it full in the face and respond in full self   knowledge.
 

If stress is “the psychological and physiological response of a person to an event which calls for adaptation,” as experts define it, the individual is left to discover for himself exactly what that adaptation will be. Hawk is a firm believer in the effectiveness of finding ways to understand how you are feeling both emotionally and physically. “If little things bother you, be aware that you are very likely physically sick without knowing it,” he says. “Simply being open to the possibility that you can help yourself by trying to get in tune with your emotional and physical state can help,” Hawk observes.
 

Hawk notes that constant anger or depression, both results of stress, “can scar heart tissue and release toxins from the spleen into the blood.” A life lived without trying to balance the effects of stress with self knowledge is a life with increased risk of career -ending disease. Hawk agrees that owner operators probably take better care of their trucks than they do of themselves, a reversal of values that makes little sense considering that your truck is replaceable while neither your body nor your mind is.

What questions can the owner operator ask himself? According to Daecher, they fall into four basic categories, as seen here:

Emotional

1. How do you feel about yourself? How satisfied are you with who you are?
2. How accepting of others are you? Can you respect people who view life differently?
3. Are you sensitive to your emotions? Can you drop the macho routine for just a minute and try to save your life?
4. Can you blot out distractions when you need to relax?
   

Physical

1. Are you sensitive to your physical well being or have you felt bad so long that you don’t know what it means to feel good?
2. Do you exercise regularly?
3. Do you maintain a balanced diet?  
   

Social

1. Do you express yourself in public and to your friends?
2. Do you take the time to maintain friendships?
3. Are you helpful?
   

Spiritual

1. Do you have a sense of purpose beyond delivering your next load?
2. Do you have people, ideas, activities you don’t want to do without?
   

Such questions point the way to establishing a base line of self awareness. Years of accepting the results of stress can be counteracted by thinking about the answers to these questions. For example, there is a great deal of evidence to show that “low self esteem, poor peer relationships, lack of social support from co-workers and/or supervisors are sources of occupational stress,” according to Bernard, Bouck and Young. To accept as normal one’s lack of self esteem or his unwillingness to communicate with friends, co workers, and supervisors creates a bedrock of resentment and anger which weighs down the choices you make on a daily basis, and continues the cycle of unrelieved stress. Questions in the emotional and social categories above can point to these tendencies in yourself and help you to deal with them.
 

Stress is not only a psychological phenomenon. To the extent that the mind affects the body, stress becomes a physical reality. But stress also has direct physical consequences.   Muscle tension and an inability to concentrate can create behaviors that are immediately dangerous as well as harmful in the long run. “There is a link between stress and accidents,” Daecher notes.
 

It is therefore as important to listen to your body as to your mind. The full gauge package in your large car is meant to give warning of problems under the hood. If you notice elevated water temperature, you try to discover its cause. In the same way increasing muscle tension, rising anger, erratic driving behaviors, can be symptoms of underlying stress. So, it is as important to identify immediate causes of stress as it is to identify underlying causes.

Road Rage

Norm Ruff, a driver for Tuscarora Plastics in New Brighton, Pennsylvania, has been driving for 40 years. Like Cushman, Ruff’s most significant stressor is people who cut him off. “Even worse, there are people out there who will play with you, speeding up or slowing down to keep you from changing lanes or getting off at an exit. There’s nothing that makes me more angry,” Ruff remarks.   A 1997 National Highway Traffic Safety administration study shows that Ruff’s complaint is not uncommon. Findings show 62 per cent of polled drivers said the behavior of another driver had been a threat in the last year. This is an easily identifiable source of immediate and intense stress. Bad weather, tight delivery schedules, and tight finances are just as common. But everyone has his personal buttons. It is these buttons the successful stress manager must discover. If road rage is the most harmful result of stress, its causes may have more to do with latent anger bubbling over and a lack of personal discipline than the transgression itself. Reacting to flawed driving behaviors is natural but stupid.
 

“One key to stress and anger management is to avoid conflict whenever possible,” says Daecher. This makes the possibility of even more dangerous behavior less likely. While it is true much stress cannot be avoided, most confrontations with other drivers can be. It is as simple as maintaining self control.   Road rage is a bona fide psychological disorder in the opinion of many mental health professionals. The immediacy of anger violently expressed means the rager is no longer thinking. He is only feeling. He is out of control, where his stress - induced behavior can kill him or someone else. However, there will be no therapist in the passenger seat when road rage happens. The driver is left to have sufficient mental resources to keep himself under control.
 

This is also true of less dramatic circumstances. Owner operators have the increased burden of running a business. This is a potential source of stress but the tension it causes can be avoided to some extent. Staying organized can defuse a great deal of stress before it grabs hold. Having your business affairs in order and understanding a balance sheet   will provide you with real control over your daily operations. “Knowing the stressors you can control and the stressors over which you have no control is a primary strategy in creating a balanced, controlled life,” Hawk says.
 

Daecher suggests making two lists, the first of stressors about which you can do nothing, the second of stressors you can avoid or control. You cannot avoid erratic behavior in other drivers. You can avoid losing track of your fuel tax payment or the strange deduction on your last settlement. Remember, however, that you can always control your reaction to either type of stressor: “Avoid triggering the stress response,” as Daecher says. ”Focus on the solutions and not the problems. Don’t overreact. And take control of situations that produce stress.”
 

Dealing with immediate stressors like erratic drivers and long term stressors like ten hours behind the wheel is as important as your willingness to educate yourself about yourself. Stress comes automatically; you need to bring on relief from stress with effort and discipline.
 

Daecher suggest a number of strategies, seen below:

Relaxation Strategies

1. Breathe deeply. Fold your hands below the rib cage. Inhale deeply and hold to the count of four. Exhale completely and visualize tension leaving the body. Three to five minutes daily.
2. Meditate and visualize. Close your eyes and mentally follow your breathing. Create a vision of your perfect environment. Place yourself in it.
3. Pray.
4. Laugh. Nothing has to be funny. The physical nature of laughter has healing qualities.
5. Progressively relax muscles. Tighten and release tension in all your muscle groups, beginning with the hands. When done, stay relaxed for a few minutes.
6. Exercise. According to Hawk, keeping the blood flowing is a significant means to reduce stress. Stretching vigorously for a few minutes will give you enrgy and release trension.
7. Stay hydrated. Hawk also suggest drinking plenty of water. “When you’re stressed,” he says, “the body expects you to bleed. Water helps the body respond without damaging itself.”
   

In addition, owner operators can take advantage of the admittedly scarce resources offered by carriers. Find out what is available through insurance and employee assistance programs.
 

Stress is a lethal reality. Like fatigue, it is disregarded in an industry that promotes productivity at the expense of personal health. The owner operator abets this process by maintaining his own unhealthful attitudes. The first step toward health may be a willingness to change your mind about the way you are living your life. Being able to drop old attitudes that stand in the way of self knowledge are key. There is a “touchy feely” aspect to stress management many drivers will find laughable or, perhaps, feminine and therefore somehow unworthy. Health itself is overlooked or becomes an object of scorn. It is this attitude that is the real killer. There is no shame in being healthy.
 

  SIDEBAR
 

If you add the numbers one through three to your scoring of the self-analysis questions, you will come up with a graphic display of your emotional health. Use the number one as poor and three as excellent.