Secret to all-day calm? A good night’s sleep

by Gabrielle on March 1, 2010

When you don’t enough zzz’s, it triggers a shutdown of your prefrontal lobe, a part of your brain that keeps emotions under control. The result? You’re more likely to act irrationally and dramatically overreact to negative situations—such as spilling your drink or someone showing up late to a meeting, according to a new brain imaging study from researchers at Harvard Medical School and the University of California, Berkeley. “Sleep appears to restore our emotional brain circuits, and in doing so prepares us for the next day’s challenges and social interactions,” the study authors explain.

[photo: aussiegall]

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