Why does lack of sleep make a person irritable? (Physiology aspect)
In: Biology
It creates a change in your mood, an altered state of mind. If you’re tired, you need to sleep, whether you can or not. It makes achieving sleep homeostasis a priority. Other things, such as school performance, work performance, and being your normal, ordinary self, are going to be more difficult to maintain, especially if sleep deprivation continues. This naturally creates stress. Irritability is a side effect of sleep deprivation and isn’t always present in someone experiencing it. It’s all based on the individual and how they deal with the stress of sleep deprivation.
Essentially, when you’re tired, your brain wants you to go the fuck to sleep, yeah? Well, it tries to figure out why you aren’t going the fuck to sleep and one of its first guesses is that you’re being threatened, so it amps up your aggression, basically it makes you angrier so you can scare off what ever the threat is. Your brain sees a problem, lack of sleep, comes up with a reason, threat, and employs a solution, aggression. This was explained to me by my AP Psych teacher two years ago, so it maybe spotty.
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