About Awake
Awake translates the science behind our understanding of the impairment caused by tiredness and fatigue into practical strategies to improve wellbeing in the workplace and on the road.
Our approach is based on solid research, with our message delivered with credibility, by a team including, scientists, industrial health and safety managers, as well former police officers with extensive experience of tiredness-related road accidents.
One of our primary areas of specialisation concerns the health & safety aspects of shift work systems in commerce and industry.
The Issues
Tiredness - Alertness in Our 24/7 Society
The Facts Make Uncomfortable Reading
Tiredness - Alertness in Our 24/7 Society
We are living and working in a society that seems to forego sleep: banking, online shopping, supermarkets, petrol stations - most activities can be conducted around the clock, seven days a week.
Our 24-hour lifestyle has many benefits, but it also means many of us are working unusual hours and have less time available for sleep. In addition, few of us appreciate just how important sleep is to ensure a healthy life.
The Facts Make Uncomfortable Reading
Tiredness impacts on our general wellbeing: it impairs performance; promotes mistakes and accidents; leads to ineffective communication and poor decision making.
Tiredness is thought to have contributed to some of the worst industrial disasters of the 20th Century including Chernobyl, Bhopal and the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
The UK Department for Transport finds that least 10% of accidents on UK roads are due to tiredness; an amount that can be doubled (20%) for motorways and other monotonous roads. Fall-asleep crashes are much more likely to result in death or serious injury, owing to the higher speed at impact. About half of these crashes are work-related. Sadly, about 10 people a week die on our roads as a result of driver tiredness.
Impairment Due To Drugs and AlcoholAwake's focus is on alertness: helping people to ensure that they are alert and fit for work. Tiredness and related impairments are further worsened even by low amounts of alcohol, various medicines and recreational drugs.
Together, these effects put workers at an unacceptable risk of accident, especially in safety-critical industries, such as road transport.
Our approach involves raising management and employees' awareness of these risks, and we provide practical advice on how these risks can be minimised.
The Workplace
Sleepiness is a major cause of workplace accidents, including driving at work. Shiftwork has particular problems, having hidden costs apart from accidents and reduced productivity - such as poor management decisions and worsening staff relations. AWAKE will assess risks, improve work place and job designs, advise on more effective shift planning and the application of beneficial countermeasures. Outcomes include lower costs with greater staff satisfaction and retention. AWAKE's comprehensive service is backed by considerable expertise in applying the 'science of sleep'
The Team
The success of Awake is largely attributable to our unique mix of expertise.
Awake employs academics, industrial consultants and ex-police officers, giving us a well-rounded understanding and approach to the issues of impairment at work and on the road.You can get in touch with the team by
Awake employs academics, industrial consultants and ex-police officers, giving us a well-rounded understanding and approach to the issues of impairment at work and on the road.
You can get in touch with the team by
phone: +44 (0)8450 77 00 38
email:enquiries@awakeltd.co.uk
or for more details head to the Contact page where you can fill out an enquiries form.
Professor Jim Horne
PhD, DSc, MSc, BSc, FBPsS, FIBiol, CPsych, CBiol
Jim Horne is the Director of the Sleep Research Centre at Loughborough University. The Centre's work sleep and sleepiness is wide ranging, and has a national and world-wide reputation. Jim wrote the textbook Why We Sleep, and the more popular Sleepfaring (both published by Oxford University Press), and he has published widely in scientific and medical journals. Sleep related accidents is a major area of his research, as is the function and need for sleep.
Dr Louise Reyner
PhD, BSc, CPsychol, AFBPsS
Louise is Research Manager at Loughborough Sleep Research Centre, where she is responsible for applied areas of sleep research. Louise is also a Senior Lecturer in Human Neuroscience, at Loughborough University. As well as her work on driver tiredness, Louise's research includes sleepiness in the workplace, countermeasures to sleepiness, and sleep disturbance in people at home, especially the effects of noise.
Jim Mundy
Awake Consultant, MEI, MaPS, MCIOB
Jim, a former Health & Safety Champion and Trainer with a major energy company, has had many years of experience in transport logistics. He has been involved in fatigue & tiredness management programs within road safety leadership projects.
Jim is also a 'root cause investigation specialist', and sees the effects that driving when tired has on people and their families.
David Barnes
