A Look at Fatigue
Have you ever gone on a lengthy plane, train or car ride and noticed how tired you were afterwards? Why is that? Were you not just sitting in place for hours on end anticipating the destination? Most people would think so, but there are other forces at play here, and quite literally in the case of travel fatigue. Travel fatigue (not to be confused with jet lag) is characterized by general fatigue, disorientation, and a headache caused by a disruption in routine, time spent in a cramped space, low-oxygen, etc.
Vehicles bounce and vibrate your body, which makes an effort to keep you upright due to inertia. This is generally bad for your body. Eventually, your muscles will stiffen and your body has to make a series of shifts to accommodate the bouncing and vibration of the vehicle. After a while this will cause aches and fatigue. So just because you don’t realize it, that doesn’t mean your body does nothing. This was found to be the same reason why standing upright for long periods of time begins to hurt your legs more than walking itself.
Studies acknowledge the issue of travel fatigue and came up with solutions for the problem. One study was conducted by Dr. Charles Samuel, Medical Director of the Centre for Sleep & Human Performance in Calgary, Alberta. He investigated frequent flying athletes and the resulting set of physical symptoms the players experienced while in the air. Even high performing athletes, as conditioned as they may be, are subject to fatigue over time. To avoid such fatigue, Dr. Samuel focused his research on finding practical approaches and interventions to develop a travel management program: pre-flight, in-flight, and post-flight. In the first period, above all else, a great emphasis was placed on getting enough sleep before travel, so as to reduce sleep debt. The second period is critical and sees that passengers are provided with concrete interventions: pillows, eyeshades, earplugs, water, and the use of noise-cancelling devices to aid in relaxation and hydration. The final period of Samuel's program saw the flyers finally disembark. During this time, their activities were meticulously planned to accommodate their circadian adjustment with additional countermeasures: judicious use of napping and caffeine, both of which were said to synergistically improve the alertness and reduce symptoms of fatigue in an individual.
Another study on travel fatigue came from the French National Travel Survey (FNTS). They sought to answer the question “What makes travel pleasant and/or tiring?” To answer this question, they focused on two questions to obtain the dependent variables of interest in this study: MUFATIGUE (whether or not the trip was physically or mentally tiring) and MUSENSATION (whether the trip was pleasant or not). What the FNTS found, through cross tabulation of these variables, was that only 8 % of trips were tiring, and fewer than 4 % were unpleasant. This can be due to socioeconomic variables and indicators of trip length, distance, purpose, and mode, all having relationships to the fatigue and pleasantness models. While longer trip times tend to be rated as fatiguing and unpleasant, trips of longer distance are more likely to be rated as pleasant, showing that travel speed and congestion levels interact with the physical distance of the trip to influence perception. It was also noted that multimodal trips are the most critical ones, since they are more often perceived as unpleasant, and as mentally or physically tiring, than unimodal trips are. Conversely, travel by car (unimodal) was seen as more tiring and less pleasant than the other modes. With cars being one of the main modes of transportation, this points to the potential solution of travel by introducing a completely different mode in the future, all constructs in the study considered.
In the city that never sleeps, travel is incessant. People always have to get from point A to point B. New Yorkers have no time to waste, as they are experiencing human life to the fullest. As the late radio host Barry Gray used to say, “a New Yorker is someone who wakes up, sees the city is underwater, and swims to work.” But New Yorkers are also tired and never really stop to think of all of the factors that contribute to their weariness amidst their experience. When you begin to consider the conveyance of people on public transportation, however, it adds up. Perhaps you’re not a frequent flying athlete or someone who travels at all. It’s not just them who have much to gain from this education. People like you and I can surely take steps toward our own fatigue management by considering the above knowledge and employing it into our own commutes.
References:
Tibbs, David J. Varicose Veins and Related Disorders. Elsevier Science, 2013.
Samuels, Charles. “Jet Lag and Travel Fatigue: A Comprehensive Management... : Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine.” LWW, 2012
Mokhtarian, Patricia, et al. “What Makes Travel Pleasant and/or Tiring? An Investigation Based on the French National Travel Survey.” Transportation, 31 Oct. 2015.
