Cranky? Emotionally Unstable? Blame Your Sleep Deprived Brain
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Yep, this research from UCal Berkley confirms what we already knew about insomnia, and explains why. When you’re sleep deprived the prefrontal lobe of the brain, which regulates our emotions, effectively shuts down. This in turn causes a person to become emotionally irrational, overreacting to negative or threatening images or situations.
Many psychiatric disorders, “particularly ones involving emotions, seem to be linked with abnormal sleep,” [researcher Matthew Walker] added. “Traditionally people mostly thought the psychiatric disorders were contributing to the sleep abnormalities, but of course it could be the other way around. If we can find out which parts of sleep are most key to emotional stability, we already have a good range of drugs that can push and pull at these kinds of sleep and maybe help treat certain kinds of psychiatric conditions.”
Emotions Run Amok in Sleep-Deprived Brains - Yahoo! News
