These days I am copy editing, Healing Your Hungry Heart, my self help eating disorder recovery book. This is a fun, challenging and arduous process.

My publisher, Conari Press, sent me the manuscript last week with the copy edits marked.  Now I'm well into the editing and writing process. 

I'm working on the boundary chapter now, and I have to tend my own boundaries. I need to get this job done and still get adequate sleep time. At the same time I'm looking at how sleep deprivation impacts you when you have an eating disorder.

Making sentences more tight and clear is the easy part.  Providing a few transitional statements to connect a paragraph or section with another takes some thought but not a lot of time. 

It's when I get into sections that really need more information so the reader can identify with what I'm saying and apply suggestions to her life that is the real challenge.

It's great to have the time distance between now and nine months ago when I sent in my final.  Now I can see glaring absences.

For example, I went much too lightly over the sleep deprivation section.  I think that when you have an eating disorder you don't realize that sleep deprivation not only causes health problems and disturbs thinking but also intensifies your eating disorder asymptoms. 

The big problem here is that when you feel badly about yourself you may believe that your mind and body troubles caused by sleep deprivation are natural weaknesses in you.  Giving yourself nourishing and adequate sleep can be a powerful force in your recovery.  Even symptoms of Depression with a capital D can gentle down as your mind and body gets adequate healing sleep.

How has sleep deprivation played into your life and your eating disorder symptoms?