How do I find a sleep doctor?

After years of suffering from chronic sleep disturbances, it still took me several years and half a dozen quacks to find the right sleep doctor.

Granted, that was two decades ago, when nobody was prioritizing sleep in the news and most people assumed we had the daily grind of modern-life-as-we-know-it to thank for our societal sleep debt.

Twenty years later, insufficient sleep as been labeled a "public health epidemic" by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Seventy million Americans have sleep problems, and approximately 60% of those are related to a chronic sleep illness (sleep apnea or insomnia, for instance). Researchers have proven the dangers of these disorders - impacting everything from your memory and cognitive abilities to an increased likelihood of a recurrent heart attack, stroke and high blood pressure.

We now know the consequences of not getting enough sleep can be fatal. Sleep isn't a luxury - it's a biological necessity.

The best way to find a doctor is to ask your primary care physician. She or he can then recommend you be evaluated by a board-certified sleep medicine physician who can evaluate and treat your illness. To have a confirmed diagnosis, you need to do a sleep study, which is relatively simple and comfortable these days.

Sources: American Academy of Sleep Medicine, Mayo Clinic