Sleep deprivation leads to an overactive emotional response with insufficient regulatory control.

“so it was almost as though without sleep you become all emotional gas pedal and too little regulatory control break”

“in other words things that previously when you've had a good night of sleep do not feel particularly emotional started to become rather emotional when you were not getting sufficient sleep”

“another part of your brain called the prefrontal cortex that sits directly above your eyes here, and particularly the middle part right between your eyes, that part of the brain acts almost like the CEO of the brain, of your emotions, and your hedonic impulses. And it sends sort of an inhibitory top-down regulatory control. It's sort of, like, the brakes on the gas pedal of your emotions. That part of the brain was shut down by sleep deprivation, and you'd lost that communication to the amygdala.”