Disentangling Sleep’s Role in Emotion Processing

Sleep plays a crucial role in emotion processing, with sleep disruptions contributing to emotion dysregulation and increased risk of mental illness. This review examines the relationship between sleep and three key aspects of emotion processing: emotional reactivity, cognitive emotion regulation, and emotional inertia. Evidence suggests that sleep deprivation heightens emotional reactivity, weakens the ability to regulate emotions adaptively, and increases the persistence of negative emotions over time. Neurobiological findings highlight the role of prefrontal-limbic circuitry in all of these processes, with sleep loss impairing top-down regulatory control over emotional responses. Furthermore, rapid eye movement sleep and slow-wave sleep appear to play distinct roles in restoring emotional balance. The findings from this review highlight how sleep disturbance plays an important role in emotion dysregulation and, over time, increases vulnerability to poorer mental health.