Shaun Lunt

I came across this adventurer's blog today.  Shaun seems to have had the sort of hobbies that inspire admiration and jealousy in equal measure, and something about his photos of flying in Alaska makes my heart beat a little faster.

He died young doing the things you see in his blog, and it seems like he left a big hole for a lot of people.

Fatigue

I was reading a report on a airliner accident (nerdy holiday reading!) and I came across this section:

Fatigue can arise from a number of different sources, including time on task, time since awake, acute and chronic sleep debt, and circadian disruption (i.e. factors which affect the normal 24-hour cycle of body functioning). A recent review of fatigue research relevant to flight operations has noted that fatigue can have a range of influences, such as increased anxiety, decreased short-term memory, slowed reaction time, decreased work efficiency, reduced motivational drive, increased variability in work performance, and increased errors of omission. However, many of these symptoms generally only appear after substantial levels of sleep deprivation have been imposed. The review also made the following observations:

• A common symptom of fatigue is a change in the level of acceptable risk that a person tolerates, or a tendency to accept lower levels of performance and not correct errors.
• Error rates increase during the period 0000 to 0600.
• Most people need eight hours sleep each day to achieve maximum levels of alertness and performance.
• Decrements in alertness and performance intensify if the time awake is 16 to 18 hours. Performance decrements of ‘high time-since-awake’ crews tended to result from ineffective decision-making rather than a deterioration of aircraft handling skills.
• Fatigue is cumulative.
• There is a discrepancy between self-reports of fatigue and actual fatigue levels, with people generally underestimating their level of fatigue.

What does this have to do with us?  Well, I'm on holiday, so I'm having a lovely rest.  The rest of you are not, and while you are hopefully not getting into situations of acute fatigue and substantial sleep-deprivation in any given 24 hour period, the finding that fatigue is cumulative deserves some consideration.  I know that before this holiday I would have described myself as fatigued, because it has been a very busy term, and we've had some unforeseen circumstances thrown in for good measure.  When I look at the list of possible results: "increased anxiety, decreased short-term memory, slowed reaction time, decreased work efficiency, reduced motivational drive, increased variability in work performance, and increased errors of omission", I can tick them all off in terms of saying, "Yes that was happening with me." I'm sure I'm not the only one.  


So, what can we do if cumulative fatigue is a problem on some level for us?  


1) Examine our work.  Are we over-working?  If so, is this necessary or not?  Sometimes we just have to do some things, but other times we need to take control of our situation a bit more.  Where is the pressure to overwork coming from?  Is it from your boss setting you an unrealistic workload?  Is it from you putting pressure on yourself to live up to some standard which is unnecessary and unhelpful?  


2) Examine our efficiency.  If our workload is necessary and reasonable, are we doing it in the easiest way?  Sometimes the inefficient and unstructured ways we prefer to do things make things take longer and feel more pressured.  


3) Examine our personal lives.  Are we being wise with our time-off?  Are we doing things which increase our cumulative fatigue level when the grown-up thing might be to curtail some of our activities?  As a slight, but related aside, I am convinced that part of the package of this job (i.e. working at NYFC) means that we have to accept the sacrifice of our social lives decreasing and losing some of the freedom we might otherwise have had to nip off every weekend somewhere.  It sucks, but I think accepting it and working with it is the only sensible solution.  


4) Examine our fatigue levels.  If we're fatigued and likely to underestimate this factor, we will be more at the mercy of less-rational anxieties and pressures.  If we can take a step-back and recognize that fatigue is affecting our view of things, then we have a rational tool to help have a more positive view of life, which will help us achieve more, reduce the pressure, and therefore become less fatigued.