Tired of Hearing Insomnia Will Make Me Fat

Did you know that according to a recent health survey, West Virginia is the most sleep-deprived state in the US? It's up there at double the national rate - probably a side effect of health problems like obesity, the researchers concluded. Or the residents' sleeplessness caused the obesity. One of those chicken-or-egg things, they said.

Excuse me, but if I read one more article about one more study that concludes that (horror upon horrors) skimping on sleep will make me gain weight, I'm going to bust a gut.

Not that I'm snubbing America's appalling obesity problem, but to focus so tightly on weight gain until the public perception becomes that a pudgy belly is the sole side effect of staying up late to watch Letterman discounts the devastation that chronic insomnia can wage…on your health, on your relationships, on your family, on your job, even on the public good.

And I should know.

About four years ago, a combination of health horrors blended together to leave me chronically sleep deprived. I'm not talking about losing couple of hours here or there, but sleeping 2-3 hours a night (if I slept at all) for a period of 3-4 months.

Nothing seemed to alleviate my nightly agony. Any medication I was prescribed would only work for a few hours, if at all. Family, web sites and professionals recommended remedies that also fell flat. Valerian root? Had the opposite effect on me, leaving me too hopped up to sleep. Same with Benadryl. At the very least, the women's magazines suggested I sneak in an afternoon nap. But I'm not a napper. I'd just lie there, staring at the ceiling and cursing my odd lot of DNA and fate.

At the time, I had recently returned to work after a back injury put me out on four months of disability leave. My physical therapist recommended, and my boss approved, a gradual schedule that started me part-time and eased me back into a full-time schedule over a period of a month or so.

But I was so dazed and weakened by lack of sleep that I could barely make it through the four-hour shifts I'd promised. Most days I struggled to get in by 9:30 and staggered out at 12:30 or 1:00. When the images on the monitor began to swirl, I had to leave even earlier. Some days I couldn't make it in at all. Some days I'd suddenly find myself at work, and couldn't remember how I got there. Also, I got sick, lost my appetite and a lot of weight (so much for that theory that sleep deprivation makes you fat…at least in my case.)

In retrospect, I shouldn't have been behind the wheel during those months. I could have killed someone, or myself. At one point I realized this, and limited my driving to days when I felt most alert. My therapist (whom, I realized later, wasn't helping me) agreed to phone sessions instead of making me drive to her office.

Eventually, it seemed clear enough to my boss that at the rate I was "progressing," I'd never make it back to my full-time schedule. My work performance, once stellar, turned pathetic. I was too ashamed to tell my boss, a woman I greatly respect and admire, about my health problems. So I could hardly blame the company for letting me go.

My last day was on a Friday in October. On Sunday morning, I broke down. Literally, I felt like I had broken. I was having trouble forming words. My lips formed the beginnings, but that's all I could get out. Then the convulsions started. Husband took me to the emergency room because he thought I'd had a stroke. In the ER, I started crying and couldn't stop. By that afternoon, I was admitted to the hospital.

Some good things resulted from that. I got a better therapist, and appropriate treatment. I learned some behavioral strategies that helped with negative thinking and depression.

And I started sleeping. It took a while, but my health, and healthy weight, returned.

I still have the occasional bad night, but I consider myself lucky. During those sleepless months, I could have nodded off behind the wheel and crashed. My sleep deprivation could have triggered serious health problems, like diabetes, heart disease, worsening depression, cognitive impairment, hallucinations, or a severely compromised immune system.

And, yes, like everybody's been warning us about, obesity.

If you've been cheating your sleep to get more done, you're only cheating yourself. If you can't sleep despite all the usual things people tell you to try, then get help. Please. Please.

So…how's your sleep? Do you conk out and sleep through the night? Do you toss and turn? Are you a light sleeper? Wake up a few times? When you can't sleep, what's worked for you?