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By: Karl Czymmek
When facing the rush of late spring conditions remember that operators need enough rest to stay safe and productive!
Anxiety on the farm increases with each passing day that staff cannot get into the field to plant crops, and longer work shifts are often needed to make up for lost time.
At some point, longer shifts in the field may actually end up being less efficient. The key to optimum productivity is to make sure that team members have enough time off for proper rest.
Dr. James Maas, (jamesmaas.com), a well-known sleep expert, was one of the highest rated speakers at the 2016 NEDPA conference. Sleepiness diminishes the ability to concentrate, the amount of effort we can expend and the quality of our performance, he said. Most people are hard-wired to require 7.5 to 9 hours of sleep a night. When he said sleep deprivation can decrease motor skills and reaction time, and that fatigue is believed to play a role in around 80,000 car accidents each day in the US (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration), I decided to look into this further.
One research project (Occup Environ Med 2000; 57:649–655) that tested 30 individuals from the transport industry and 9 from the Army compared sleep deprivation to alcohol consumption. Participants who didn’t sleep for 17 to 19 hours had up to 50% slower response speeds on some tests, and significantly reduced accuracy on other tests. When compared to alcohol consumption, researchers found that performance was equivalent to or worse than having a 0.05% blood alcohol level (BAC). In NYS, 0.05 to 0.07% BAC triggers a DWAI charge!
Clearly, we would never let staff operate while impaired from alcohol, but many of us are unaware that sleep deprivation can have similar effects on the brain.
Not getting enough sleep to make up for lost field time is a false economy: it can put workers safety and productivity in jeopardy.
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