When I was a kid, it felt like every adult I talked to was tired.
They referenced being exhausted, not sleeping well, or lying awake at night staring at the ceiling.

As a child, I thought: pfft, whatever.

I was an excellent sleeper. Truly elite. I’ve fallen asleep in some questionable places, and on long road trips my head would flop around so much is been compared to a noodle!

Fast forward to adulthood, and what I once thought was just an “adult thing” hasn’t disappeared, it’s intensified.

Many clients, friends, and family members now describe sleeping five to six hours a night, waking frequently, or never feeling rested. Poor sleep hygiene has become normalized, even joked about.

But neurologically and emotionally, sleep deprivation is not benign.

This is my strongest argument for why sleep matters and why it isn’t something to play with.

Most of us know sleep matters. We’ve heard it repeatedly. And yet, it’s often the last thing we consider when our emotions feel overwhelming, sharp, or out of proportion.

When you’re exhausted, your emotional world doesn’t just feel harder; it is harder, physiologically.

Sleep is active maintenance for the brain and nervous system. During sleep, your brain is:

• Processing emotional experiences from the day
• Down-regulating stress hormones like cortisol
• Restoring capacity for emotional regulation
• Strengthening the ability to distinguish discomfort from danger
• Releasing hormones that are primarily produced while asleep

When sleep is shortened or fragmented, these systems don’t fully reset.

When you’re sleep-deprived, you may notice:

• Increased irritability (small things feel disproportionately large)
• Lower emotional tolerance (you hit your limit faster)
• More anxiety and rumination
• Heightened reactivity (snapping, withdrawing, shutting down)
• Reduced access to compassion, for yourself and others
• A feeling of being emotionally “raw” or exposed

Neuroscience helps explain why.

Sleep deprivation decreases activity in the prefrontal cortex; the region responsible for perspective, impulse control, and emotional regulation and while increasing reactivity in the amygdala, the brain’s threat detector.

The secondary challenge is what often comes next: more caffeine.

When we’re underslept, most of us reach for coffee, energy drinks, afternoon tea, or “just one more” espresso to get through the day.

Caffeine can feel helpful in the moment. It increases alertness and temporarily improves focus. But emotionally and neurologically, it often compounds the problem.

Caffeine stimulates the nervous system, and the gut.

The same system already under strain from lack of sleep. It increases heart rate, elevates cortisol, and can heighten anxiety, restlessness, and irritability.

So while it helps you push through, it can also:

• Amplify anxious thinking
• Increase emotional reactivity
• Delay the body’s ability to wind down
• Further disrupt sleep architecture that night

Which sets the stage for the next day:

more fatigue → more caffeine → more nervous system activation.

It becomes a loop

less sleep → more caffeine → more activation → poorer sleep → heightened emotions → more caffeine → more activation → poorer sleep…. you get the idea. 

Sometimes the goal isn’t more energy. It’s less stimulation.

That might mean choosing a short 15–20 minute midday rest instead of another coffee, or protecting an earlier bedtime rather than pushing through the evening artificially alert.

Ever notice how a neutral comment suddenly feels loaded? Or how worries escalate quickly at night? Don’t even get me started on how bad of advice that everyone seems to have heard when it comes to relationships of “never go to bed angry”.... Because yes! Go to bed angry. Don’t keep hashing it out at 11pm!

Lack of sleep reduces the brain’s ability to separate what’s happening from the story being told about it.

When you’re tired:

• Old narratives surface more easily
• Past hurts feel closer and more immediate
• Self-criticism gets louder
• Uncertainty feels harder to tolerate

Improving sleep doesn’t require perfection or rigid routines. From a neurological perspective, what matters most is reducing evening stimulation and increasing predictability.

Small, consistent shifts can have outsized effects.

1. Be mindful of alcohol as a sleep disruptor
Alcohol may make you feel sleepy initially, but it interferes with deeper, restorative stages of sleep; particularly REM sleep. You may fall asleep faster and still wake feeling emotionally flat, irritable, or anxious.

No matter what anyone tells you, there is tons of peer reviewed and clinical trials to show you, that alcohol does not support sleep!

2. Soften stimulation in the evening
Screens, news, work, and emotionally charged content keep the nervous system activated even when the body is exhausted. Check out a blog post here about why its important to get off your phone!

Consider:

• Dimming lights an hour before bed
• Shifting from stimulating content to familiar or calming material
• Reducing late-night work, news, or intense conversations

3. Create a consistent wind-down ritual
The brain responds to cues. Repetition signals safety.

This could include:

• Herbal tea
• Gentle stretching or a brief step outside
• Reading something non-demanding

What matters isn’t what you do;  it’s that you do it consistently.

4. Be strategic with caffeine
If you rely on caffeine (same!). Rather than eliminating it, experiment with:

• Earlier cut-off times
• Slightly reduced quantities
• Alternating with water, decaf, or another tasty drink

5. Treat rest as emotional care

Sometimes emotional work doesn’t begin with insight or coping strategies.Sometimes it begins with rest.

This podcast with Dr. Matt Walker is so incredible and so informative.  

Check out this article on sleep hygiene!