This paper proposes a resource intensive traffic-aware scheme, incorporated into an energy-efficient routing protocol that enables energy conservation and efficient data flow coordination, among secondary communicating nodes with heterogeneous spectrum availability in distributed cognitive radio networks. The proposed scheme associates the backward difference traffic moments with the Sleep-time duration to tune the activity durations of a node for achieving optimal energy conservation and alleviating the uncontrolled energy consumption of wireless devices. Efficient routing protocol operation, as a matter of maximum energy conservation, maximum-possible routing paths establishments and minimum delays is obtained, by utilizing a signalling mechanism, developed based on a simulation scenario that includes a number of secondary communication nodes. The validity of the proposed resource intensive traffic-aware scheme and the energy-efficient routing protocol is estimated and verified, by conducting experimental simulation tests and obtaining performance evaluation results. The simulation results validated the efficiency of the proposed scheme and the effectiveness of the routing protocol, in terms of minimizing the energy consumption and maximizing resources exchange between secondary communication nodes in a distributed cognitive radio network.