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My whole life, I've considered myself an insomniac, a trait I shared with my sister and two brothers. The four of us, when living at home, would stay up until 2 or 3 a.m., watching television, eating crap. All of my sibilings still suffer from insomnia. My youngest brother works for a hospital, and often works the overnight shift, simply because he's awake. My sister takes herbal supplements to help her get more sleep. My other brother sends many of his emails overnight, when most people are asleep.

I became aware of what sleep deprivation could do a person, not because of what I was going through, but because a friend suffering from post-back-surgery pain developed sleep deprivation psychosis. Friends and family received barely discernable emails and phone calls. Texts were sent at all hours, in all caps, accusatory and paranoid. He became manic, grandiose, and would tell friends that he had developed relationships with important people in the Boston area, none of which existed. When I would call him to check on him, he would accuse me of being "one of them," meaning that he felt his family and friends were trying to hurt him in some way. He was finally forced to seek help, and now is slowly recovering from his mental break. The medication he is currently taking makes him move a bit more slowly, but he is sleeping, even for 3 or 4 hours per night.

As I was diagnosed with hyper-thyroidism, I did research, and found that a lot of patients had suffered from insomnia. I thought that was interesting, but as I had been an insomniac for years, I didn't think that I would ever be a big sleeper. It drove my poor husband nuts, since he is a fairly light sleeper, and I would constantly wake him up, watching television until the wee hours of the morning.

Following my surgery, I was getting more sleep than usual, but I attribute that to recovering from general anesthesia, and my body needing extra sleep to recover. But since then, I have been sleeping. A lot. I have a hard time staying awake past 11 p.m., which I had to do last night, because I needed to wait until midnight to take my medication. I easily got eight hours of sleep, which I've been doing every night since my surgery.

Yet another benefit ...