(Springfield, MO) -- How'd you sleep last night? We don't mean to be personal -- we're asking for a good reason: your health.

You probably hear your friends and co-workers complain about how little sleep they get, and how tired they are.

Sleep loss is now a serious national health concern. Some experts say it's an epidemic.

The good news is people who recognize the problem can often find a remedy.

Lack of sleep contributes to a laundry list of health problems, but some experts say we're not taking the warnings seriously as we continue to cram more hours into the day. Your body's telling you something, so don't ignore it.

Many of us have been there. Old, young and in between, in a battle against the clock for a few more minutes of sleep.

For Jandy Darville, that fight was for her life.

"I felt like I wasn't living my life," Darville says.

The 32-year-old mother was working, going to school and raising children. She says she was doing it all, but none of it well.

"I would go to work and want to nap," Darville says. "I couldn't interact with my kids like I wanted to. I wanted to go to bed all the time."

At her wit's end, Darville came to the St. John's Sleep Center. She says what she learned saved her.

"You can die," Darville says. "They told me the results and I was just shocked."

After a referral from her doctor, she was cared for by the staff members like Tim Davi.

"Do you snore on your back?" nurse practitioner Davi asks.

It wasn't long ago when Davi became a patient.

"My wife told me I was snoring, chocking, gasping," he says.

After brushing off her pleas for help, he finally checked in for overnight testing.

"It's like staying in a hotel room," Davi says.

But with a few added accessories. Patients are monitored with electrodes, microphones and cameras so staff members can get an accurate assessment of any sleep disorders.

"Eighty to 90 percent have a disorder," Kristi Dover of the Sleep Clinic says. "Some people are normal and just fatigued."

What's not normal, say medical experts, is snoring. It's one of the leading signs of sleep apnea, the second most common sleep disorder behind insomnia.

"Sleep apnea means there are times you stop breathing in your sleep," Dover says.

That's exactly what was happening to Darville and Davi.

"I stopped breathing up to 80 times a night," Darville says.

Davi says he stopped breathing 158 times a night.

It's a problem for as many as 20 million Americans, and can lead to high blood pressure, stroke, depression, weight gain, even impotency. Still, experts say too many patients ignore the warning signs.

"They need help," Dover says. "If they weren't breathing in the daytime, you'd call 911."

Medical research suggests lack of oxygen while asleep can be more detrimental than while awake, because your body's normal reactions aren't as strong when you're sleeping. Some doctors say the repeated drop in oxygen can lead to brain injury.

So what's the remedy? Surgery or therapy are options. But often a sleep study leads to prescribing a continuous positive airway pressure machine, or CPAP.

"It pushes air down to breathe easier," Darville says.

"With proper therapy, a patient can feel so much better," Davi says. "It's cheap when compared to paying for a heart attack."

Davi says results of his study have lead to treatment that's improved his health. He was taken off medications for high blood pressure and depression, and he's noticing another change, too.

"I was able to lose quite a bit of weight," Davi says.

Darville saw similar results.

"The first two months, I lost 10 pounds," she says.

But both patients say the biggest breath of fresh air is the impact sleep has had on their waking hours.

"I feel like I'm enjoying life and not watching the clock," Darville says.

"It gives you back the years you didn't know you lost," Davi says.

Sleep disorders are as common as asthma and diabetes.

Experts say as our population deals with significant weight gain, the problem grows. Body fat contributes to apnea, and then, when you're tired you tend to eat more to gain energy, so it becomes a cyclical problem.

But as you noticed, patients say they trimmed down with treatment. 

For patients who need that breathing treatment, there is a cost.

A CPAP machine can run around $300 to $600 on the internet. If you go through your insurance company and a medical supply store, it's about $1,300. Insurance usually covers about 80% of that cost, and you can choose for a lease-to-purchase option.

If you want to put that cost in perspective, research at Stanford University suggests the more than 40,000 patients diagnosed with heart disease each year could save $25,000 annually by treating sleep apnea.