Ella Walker has tried everything to get a good night's rest. She bought a new pillow-top bed, stopped drinking Coke and booted the TV from the bedroom. She eventually dabbled in sleeping pills. Nothing offered respite. Over the past year, the bleary-eyed woman in her 50s hasn't been able to break a vicious sleep cycle that forced her to get by on just two or three hours of sleep a night. Toting a toothbrush and Ebony magazine, Walker recently checked herself into a sleep lab at DeKalb Medical Center, desperate for answers, treatment and, above everything else, some zzzs. “I'll do anything,” she said, eyes droopy and barely awake. “I just want my sleep to be resolved so badly.” After slipping into purple flannel pajamas, she lumbered into Room 4 at the lab. The room looks very much like a hotel room (without the TV), featuring a queen-size bed, fluffy pillows, temperature controls, khaki walls and stack of magazines - all designed to induce sleep. Walker, with almost 20 wires attached to her, crawled into bed and fell asleep. The sleep didn't last long. Walker is one of the estimated 50 million to 70 million Americans suffering from a sleep disorder - a condition making Americans not just drowsy but also fatigued, irked and anxious. Experts blame a mix of on-the-go lifestyles and bad habits - Starbucks Ventis, late-night snacks and late-night TV - for growing sleep woes. And when it's time for bed, doctors say bodies don't always shut down when we turn off the lights. Insomnia is often linked to depression, fatigue and poor eating habits, and doctors say too many people shirk sleep as some kind of luxury instead of an essential activity. “We have a ‘too-many-balls-in-the-air' lifestyle” said Dr. Michael Lacey, director of the Northside Hospital Sleep Disorder Center. “People try to get by on five hours of sleep when they really need six or seven. And then people try to make it up on the weekend, and it doesn't work that way. And what you have is people not performing up to par.” Dr. Joseph Weissman, a neurologist at DeKalb Medical Center, said the personality characteristics of insomniacs sometimes serve a person well at work but don't translate well in bed. “It may be helpful at work to be a bit obsessive,” said Weissman. “But then they may be hyper alert and their mind is abuzz with too many things, and then they obsess about not sleeping.” It's normal for people to occasionally have trouble sleeping. Big stresses like a divorce or losing a job can interfere with anyone's sleep. But while most people snap back into regular, continuous sleep, others struggle. Doctors say a pattern of not being able to sleep three or more days a week requires a visit to the doctor. __
