Why We’re All More Irritable at Year’s End – And What It’s Really Trying to Tell Us
- Brainz Magazine
- 4 days ago
- 4 min read
Bronwen Sciortino is an International Author and Simplicity Expert who spent almost two decades as an award-winning executive before experiencing a life-changing event that forced her to stop and ask the question, ‘What if there’s a better way to live?
There’s a moment each December when everything starts to feel a little sharper. The noise is louder. People feel closer. Small things that never bothered you suddenly scrape at your patience, and you can’t quite explain why. You still care about the people around you, but your empathy feels thinner than usual, stretched across too many days, too many demands, too many moments where you’ve had to “hold it together” for just a bit longer.
Most of us assume this shift is a personal failure. We think we should be more patient, more gracious, more available, more everything. Yet the truth is far simpler than that, and far kinder:
Your irritability at the end of the year isn’t a character flaw. It’s your nervous system waving a small, brave flag that says, “I’m running out of room.”
This is the collective confession we rarely speak aloud. Not because we don’t feel it, but because we’ve been taught to hide it.
When exhaustion quietly rewires your reactions
As the year winds down, your brain does something very normal, very human, and very misunderstood. It starts narrowing its focus.
When you’re tired, your emotional “peripheral vision” shrinks. You take in less information, you process things more quickly, and you react before you’ve had time to choose how you want to respond.
Empathy requires spaciousness. Exhaustion steals that space. It’s not that you stop caring, it’s that you’re operating with less internal bandwidth than you realise.
Your brain is doing its best to protect the energy you have left, and one of the fastest ways it does that is by shortening your tolerance for anything that feels like “extra,” even when the “extra” is someone you love.
This is why small requests can suddenly feel heavy, why interruptions seem bigger, why you feel more sensitive to tone, noise, crowds, and expectations.
Not wrong, not broken, just overloaded.
The December pressure cooker
There’s also an unspoken cultural script we all follow at this time of year, one that quietly pushes us past our limits without us even noticing how often we override ourselves.
Finish strong.
Be cheerful.
Say yes.
Show up.
Keep the peace.
Hold the load.
Do the “right” thing, even when you’re barely holding yourself together.
December asks for more while giving you less. The days are full, the expectations are high, and the emotional weight of the year catches up to you all at once. We’re told to power through, to be grateful, to keep smiling, to rise to the occasion.
But every system has a point where it stops thriving and starts coping. Your irritability isn’t a problem. It’s the proof.
Why empathy drops when you’re carrying too much
When your system is overworked, three things happen:
You lose flexibility. Everything feels more rigid because you don’t have the space to adapt.
You become reactive instead of responsive. Your brain chooses speed over nuance.
You protect the little capacity you have left. Which means other people’s needs can feel like pressure, even when they’re not asking for much.
It’s confronting to realise this, not because it’s wrong, but because it’s normal. This is how humans function when they’ve been “on” for too long. The body whispers, then it nudges, then it tightens its grip until you finally pay attention.
We think irritability means we’re getting something wrong. But more often, it’s the moment we’re finally seeing what’s real.
The gentler way back to yourself (and to each other)
Most people try to fix irritability by forcing themselves to “be better”. But irritation isn’t asking you to perform. It’s asking you to pause. It’s a signal, not a sentence.
Here are five small shifts, quiet, simple, human that help your system breathe again:
Give yourself one beat before you respond. A tiny pause interrupts automatic reactions and restores choice.
Notice your energy without judging it. Saying “I’m more tired than I realised” softens everything instantly.
Remove one thing from your day. We are conditioned to add more when things feel hard, but relief often lives in subtraction.
Create a small pocket of quiet daily. It doesn’t have to be long just enough to let your nervous system reset.
Choose real connection over performance. Pretending takes more energy than honesty ever will.
These aren’t strategies for perfection. They are invitations back to presence.
The real truth about year-end irritability
It’s easy to think your reactions mean something about your worth. They don’t.
Being tired doesn’t make you unkind. Being at capacity doesn’t make you uncaring. Being overwhelmed doesn’t make you a bad person.
It makes you human beautifully, imperfectly, honestly human.
And when you give yourself more space, empathy comes back. Not because you forced it, but because you finally had room for it to breathe. The end of the year doesn’t need you to hold everything together. It needs you to notice yourself again.
Bronwen Sciortino is a Simplicity Expert, Professional Speaker, and internationally renowned author. You can follow her on her website, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn.
Read more from Bronwen Sciortino
Bronwen Sciortino, International Author & Simplicity Expert
Bronwen Sciortino is an International Author and Simplicity Expert who spent almost two decades as an award-winning executive before experiencing a life-changing event that forced her to stop and ask the question, ‘What if there’s a better way to live?’ Embarking on a journey to answer this question, Bronwen developed a whole new way of living, one that teaches you to challenge the status quo and include the power of questions in everyday life. Gaining international critical acclaim and 5-star awards for her books and online programs,
Bronwen spends every day teaching people that there is an easy, practical, and simple pathway to creating a healthy, happy, and highly successful life. Sourced globally for media comment as an expert and working with corporate programs, conference platforms, retreats, professional mentoring, and in the online environment, Bronwen teaches people how easy it is to live life very differently.
