Emotion regulation is the way in which we manage our emotions and behaviors that arise from emotions, with an aim to change the way we express or feel our emotion. Explicit emotion regulation is when we do this consciously. Theories have proposed that this ability may be affected by total sleep deprivation and partial sleep deprivation. In this systematic review we investigated these claims and looked at the research currently available. We found that the research on this topic was thoroughly lacking both in amount and in methodological consistency. Therefore drawing conclusive results was not possible. The total of six studies evaluated in this systematic review were inconclusive and varied in their results, demographic, age group, method and emotion regulation strategies used. These widespread inconsistencies furthers the need for more studies in order to reach a conclusion.