Staying healthy as a truck driver isn’t easy, especially when a large portion of your day involves keeping yourself and your cargo safe in stressful driving conditions and dealing with delays or other circumstances often beyond your control. Throw into that mix the poor diet and sedentary nature common to many truck drivers, and it’s no wonder drivers are at high risk for high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, and other health risks.
As May is National Stroke Awareness month, our employees decided to raise awareness by wearing red and raising money to donate to the American Stroke Association. In the pictures above, you can see some of the employees who participated in our stroke awareness luncheon.
Risk Factors
There are many risk factors for stroke. According to the National Stroke Association, some of the more common risk factors include:
- Hypertension
- Physical inactivity
- Poor diet
- Obesity
- Smoking
- Alcohol intake
- Stress
- Diabetes
Some of these can be addressed through proper diet and exercise, while others may require medical attention. For example, to eat healthier, you could opt to buy a slow cooker to use with an in-cab inverter. That way you could prepare your own healthy meals. Or, to get better exercise, you could go on walks around where you park, or do body-weight exercises (such as push-ups or squats) inside the sleeper.
Signs of a Stroke
The National Stroke Association created the easy-to-remember acronym FAST to help you remember the signs of a stroke:
F: Face. Ask the person to smile—does one side of the face droop?
A: Arms. Ask the person to raise both of their arms—does one arm drift downward?
S: Speech. Ask the person to repeat a simple sentence—is their speech slurred?
T: Time. There’s not a lot of time—if you observe these symptoms, call 911 immediately!
This May, during Stroke Awareness Month, take the time to get to know these symptoms and reduce your risk factors. The life you save might be your own!
Resources:
https://www.health.harvard.edu/womens-health/8-things-you-can-do-to-prevent-a-stroke
https://www.truckersnews.com/get-to-know-stroke-risk-factors-signs-symptoms/
https://www.overdriveonline.com/better-health-take-matters-of-the-heart-seriously/
