I'm coming to increasingly notice that maintaining a specific, regular sleep pattern is worth making sacrifices for. Specifically, if I go to bed around 10:30 PM and get up around 8 AM, I will wake up feeling energetic, productive and physically good. If I get up even a few hours later, or if I go to bed late but regardless get up at 8 in the morning, there's a very good chance that I will accomplish basically nothing on that day. It's weird how getting the timing so precisely correct seems to basically be the biggest determining factor in how my day will go.
I had noticed this before, but had frequently slipped from it, since most of my social events tend to be on evenings and maintaining these sleeping patterns while still having a social life was quite hard. But I'm now becoming convinced that those sacrifices are worth making: I'll just have to persuade my friends to be social at earlier times, or look for people who are already that.
Do you use an alarm clock? If so, your problem might have less to do with sleep deprivation (which I don't think should cause the sort of acute effects you describe) and more with getting up at the wrong time within a sleep cycle. If you have an iPhone or iPod touch, give Sleep Cycle a try for avoiding this problem. I think there are similar apps for different platforms. If you're not using an alarm clock (or are already using something like Sleep Cycle), I'd be genuinely surprised.
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.