fatiguemanagement

Fatigue management, sometimes written as fatigue-management, is a field of practice and research focused on reducing the prevalence and impact of fatigue in the workplace and daily life. Fatigue refers to a diminished capacity to perform tasks due to physical or mental exertion, insufficient sleep, or circadian disruption. It can impair vigilance, decision making, reaction time, and mood, increasing the risk of mistakes and accidents.

Strategies typically combine individual and organizational measures. Individual approaches emphasize regular sleep and recovery, sleep hygiene, circadian-aware scheduling, caffeine in moderation, physical activity, nutrition, and hydration. Organizational strategies aim to design work schedules that minimize sleep debt and circadian misalignment, provide adequate rest breaks, and enforce limits on consecutive work hours. Rest opportunities, including protected naps in shift work, are common components in safety-critical industries.

Assessment and monitoring use subjective tools such as sleepiness or fatigue questionnaires and objective measures like actigraphy, performance tasks, or physiological indicators in some sectors. FRMS (Fatigue Risk Management Systems) are formal frameworks used in aviation, rail, and trucking to identify, assess, and mitigate fatigue risk, integrating policy, training, and oversight with incident reporting and continuous improvement.

Contexts and impacts: fatigue contributes to reduced productivity, increased error rates, and safety incidents across healthcare, transportation, manufacturing, and public safety. Challenges include variable individual responses to sleep loss, stigma around reporting fatigue, and cost of implementation. Future directions emphasize data-driven scheduling, wearable monitoring, and standardized FRMS practices that balance safety with practical constraints.

Overall, fatigue management seeks to align recovery opportunities with job demands, aiming to sustain performance and health.