Cranky All The Time? Scientific Reasons For Constant Crankiness Explained!

Do you often find yourself in a bad mood? Are you always overreacting in situations that can be handled calmly? If yes, there is a chance you are in a constant state of crankiness. Being cranky all the time can affect your health, relationships, and overall health a lot.

What does be cranky mean? Crankiness is a combination of anger, frustration, irritation, disappointment, and a few more negative emotions. As we grow older the reason for our crankiness continues to change.

For example, a baby can become cranky if they are not fed on time, if their stomach is hurting, or if they want to sleep, etc. However, as we grow older, the said conditions do make us cranky but it’s not as severe as it is for a baby.

For adults, issues like social embarrassment, project failure, stress, etc can cause severe crankiness. Moreover, if you are unable to recognize the reason behind your cranky self, it can increase even more.

Therefore, knowing why you are cranky all the time is very important for you to decide what to do to curb it. In this blog, we all talk about some scientific reasons behind adult crankiness. Shall we begin?

‘Why Am I So Cranky All The Time?” Scientific Reasons Below!

1. Neurochemical Imbalance:

Our moods, emotions, feelings, and thoughts are highly influenced by some chemicals or neurotransmitters released by our brains. To be very specific, melatonin and serotonin are majorly responsible for how we feel.

Therefore, when there is an imbalance (in terms of production, too much or too little) we tend to feel uneasy, and that uneasiness manifests itself into constant crankiness. A low level of serotonin can make you feel irritated and an uneven distribution of melatonin can foster frustration and anger.

Also read: Why Am I Always Angry and Irritated for No Reason

2. Sleep Deprivation:

Sleep deprivation is a known cause of various mental, emotional, and physical conditions. Crankiness is yet another byproduct of sleep deprivation. When you do not get enough sleep, your brain functions become slow.

Now, when your brain is functioning at a slow rate, processing emotions becomes really difficult. As a result, you tend to experience an emotional explosion in the form of crankiness. Therefore, sleep deprivation can be responsible for why you feel cranky all the time.

3. Chronic Stress:

Stress has also contributed to the development of numerous mental, emotional, and physical health conditions. In fact, it is one of the leading causes of suicide, heart disease, and other severe mental and physical health conditions.

When an individual experiences stress for a prolonged period of time, their brains are most likely to increase the production of a hormone called cortisol. When you have a huge release of cortisol it results in increased crankiness. So, being stressed all the time is why you feel cranky all the time.

4. Hormonal Changes:

As you must have already noticed, some of the above-stated reasons mention some hormones like serotonin, melatonin, cortisol, etc. Our brain produces a lot of hormones so that we can function properly.

Also Read: Why Am I So Emotional? 11 Reasons To Find Out

Sometimes, these hormones experience changes from time to time. These changes can be because of a bad lifestyle or a medical condition. Now, when one experiences extreme hormonal changes, there are high chances of becoming extremely cranky.

5. Chronic Pain or Illness

Feeling comfortable is a blessing. However, we are not comfortable all the time. There can be many reasons for our discomfort and one of them is being in pain or living with an illness. When our body experiences discomfort for a long time, we tend to become cranky.

Therefore, if you are in pain or are ill, perhaps that’s why you suddenly feel cranky. This kind of crankiness should go when the pain goes or you’ve recovered from your illness.

6. Psychological Factors:

Many psychological conditions can foster crankiness because you’re not in a comfortable and relaxed state of mind. With mental health conditions, there are a lot of mismanaged emotions and feelings.

Everything is haywire when your emotions and feelings are all over the place and it can easily become cranky. Now do you know why you are cranky all the time?

What Can I Do About It?

Crankiness is not something that you won’t be able to identify. What’s difficult is identification of the reason why you feel so cranky. You can explore the above-mentioned reason why one can feel cranky so often and find the one you think can be your reason.

If you aren’t sure about your reason, you can also talk to a mental health professional. However, sometimes simple things like lifestyle changes or learning stress management skills can help you reduce your crankiness.

Once you have discovered the reason behind your crankiness, you need to work towards curbing whatever is feeding your crankiness. You can get professional help to get rid of crankiness permanently as well.

Also Read: Low On Serotonin? These Foods Decrease Serotonin Levels + Food That Boost Serotonin

Thanks for reading.

Take care and stay safe.