Lack of sleep effects: why do we get more emotional when we’re tired?

A woman feeling emotional

Credit: Getty

Strong Women


Lack of sleep effects: why do we get more emotional when we’re tired?

By Lauren Geall

Updated 4 months ago

5 min read

Do you struggle to control your emotions when you’re tired? Here’s why a lack of sleep has the power to leave us tearful and short-tempered, according to a sleep expert.


For the most part, I’d say I’m quite an emotionally stable person. I love a good cry as much as the next person (it’s healthy, right?) and get frustrated when people shove me on the Tube, but generally, I’d say I’m good at keeping my emotions under control.

However, there’s one situation when all of this changes: when I’m struggling with a lack of sleep. Whenever I go to bed late, struggle to fall asleep or have to get up super early, I know I’m in for a tricky 24 hours the next day. Because when I’m tired, my ability to control my emotions kind of goes out the window. 

It’s become such an identifying factor of my personality that if I phone up my Mum and tell her I’m feeling worried about something, the first question she’ll ask me is “how did you sleep last night?”. 

It’s like as soon as I miss out on sleep, all of my emotions become amplified. Instead of feeling anxious, I’m spiralling into panic. Instead of feeling a little annoyed, I’m on the edge of full-blown anger. And instead of feeling a little upset or stressed, I find myself sobbing on the bus. 

However, I’m not the only one whose ability to handle the world goes out the window when I’m feeling tired. According to research from Bensons For Beds, 87% of British people say tiredness makes them intolerant, with one in five (18%) saying they constantly row with their partner because they feel exhausted. 

Some 15% of people also said they feel their personality changes when they are tired – and more than a fifth confessed that they swear under their breath at “everything” when they’re lacking on sleep.

But why is this? Strong Women spoke to sleep expert Dr Sophie Bostock to find out more, including how a lack of sleep has the potential to impact our mental health.


Why do we get so emotional when we’re tired? 

A woman with tears in her eyes

Credit: Unsplash

We’ve established that everything gets a bit more trying when we’re feeling low on energy – but what’s going on in our brains to make us feel this way?

“To make sense of this, it’s worth thinking back 200,000 years to when the early humans were living out on the savannah,” Dr Bostock says. “In those days, what would have kept us awake? Predators. Storms. Hunger. Threats to survival. And so, our brains have evolved to interpret sleep deprivation as a potentially dangerous situation. The amygdala, which is the part of our brain which switches on the ‘fight or flight’ stress response, therefore gets more sensitive. This means we become much more emotional, and even small problems feel more stressful.”

Because our amygdala is more sensitive when we’re feeling tired, and we’re therefore more likely to have our stress response activated, lack of sleep can also have a physical impact on our body. This is because, when the “fight or flight” response is triggered, hormones flood through our body to help us respond to the thing we’ve identified as a “threat”.

“The stress hormones, adrenaline and cortisol, increase our heart rate, blood pressure and blood flow to the muscles,” Dr Bostock says. “Over time, lack of sleep is linked to an increased risk of high blood pressure, heart disease and even early mortality.”

And why do we struggle to keep those emotions under control? 

Now we know why a lack of sleep can make us feel more emotionally sensitive – but that doesn’t explain why we’re more likely to respond in a rash and disproportionate way. Feeling annoyed and grumpy is one thing, but shouting at a well-meaning colleague? That’s a whole other kettle of fish. So why do we do it? And what does a lack of sleep have to do with this behaviour?

“In addition to a supercharged amygdala, the sleep-deprived brain has less activity in the areas of the brain which could be less important if you’re running from a predator,” Dr Bostock explains. “These include the areas controlling forward planning, goal-directed behaviour and self-control.

“In other words, we get more emotional, and we have less of a break on those emotions.”

How does a lack of sleep affect our mental health? 

A woman trying to fall asleep

Credit: Unsplash

Feeling emotional every once in a while, due to a lack of sleep, is OK if you’re able to get some much-needed rest to address that imbalance, but what about when a lack of sleep begins to become a recurring presence in our lives?

“In the short term, one of the main effects is an increase in anxiety – which makes sense if you’re under threat,” Dr Bostock says. “All our emotions can be exaggerated, but we most consistently see an increase in negative emotions and a decrease in positive emotions. We have less energy, and less motivation.”

It’s undeniable that there’s a strong relationship between the amount of sleep we get and our mental health, but it’s also important to remember that the amount of sleep we “need” is different for everyone – and not to get too fixated on the guidance that says seven or eight hours is the be-all-and-end-all.

As Dr Nerina Ramlakhan – a sleep expert and author of The Little Book Of Sleep: The Art Of Natural Sleep – previously told an audience at Stylist’s Restival, it’s important we don’t spend too much time worrying about the amount of sleep we’re getting.

“I recommend that my clients don’t get too fixated,” she said. “A lot of people don’t sleep so well the night before a big event, or on Sunday nights because they think they must get a good night’s sleep. 

“If we inflexibly believe [that we need a good night’s sleep] to be the case, that stops us sleeping. And when I’ve worked with professional athletes one of the things I say to them is ‘don’t even think about sleep tonight – you’re playing for England tomorrow, forget it’.

“We could have three or four hours of sleep which are far more nourishing than the seven or eight. It’s that depth of sleep. Sometimes the things we think about sleep are stopping us sleeping in the first place.”


This article was originally published in 2020 and has been updated throughout.

Images: Getty/Unsplash

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