The Bravery Hangover
Why doing the scary thing feels terrible the next morning, and what to do before noon.
You did it!
You sent the pitch. Signed up for the class. Told them how you felt. Put the deposit down. And it felt incredible, like proof that you’re the person you always suspected you could be. You went to bed accomplished.
Then morning came, and you woke up a different person. Chest tight. Stomach hollow. The day ahead impossibly long. And one question circling like a vulture: what on earth was I thinking yesterday?
Congratulations. You have a bravery hangover.
Nobody warns you about this part. Every piece of advice about courage ends at the moment of action, freeze-framed on the triumphant send. Nobody mentions that the morning after. So people wake up in it and draw the obvious, wrong conclusion: this awful feeling must mean I made a mistake.
It doesn’t. And that’s what I want to hand you today: the hangover is not a verdict on the decision. It’s the bill due for the exposure. They arrive in the same way, and learning to tell them apart might be one of the most useful skills a creative person can build.
Let me show you mine, because I had one this week.
The day began with a surge of energy so electric I thought, this is it, I’m unstoppable! Then I remembered I’d taken Sudafed that morning, so the momentum might have just been literal amphetamines coursing through my system. But I’ll take it. Momentum is momentum. I sent off five pitches for my shows. I signed a contract for a solo performance in NYC, committing not just to the show but to selling the tickets and making it work financially. I wrote a check for the deposit, a tangible and slightly terrifying act that said: this is real. I ended the day with a sense of accomplishment so satisfying it could have been bottled and sold as ambition.
The next morning I woke up and the momentum had evaporated, replaced by something heavier and murkier. The questions piled up like storm clouds. What if no one buys tickets? What if I priced it wrong? What if nobody actually cares? Yesterday’s victories, with the Sudafed well and truly worn off, now felt like risks way too big for me to handle.
So why does this happen? Here’s the mechanism as I understand it from the experts.
Momentum doesn’t cancel fear. It just pushes fear aside just long enough for you to act. Bold action is essentially bravery on credit: in the heat of the doing, you spend exposure you haven’t emotionally paid for yet. Then you sleep, the action-high burns off, and overnight some diligent accountant in your brain tallies up exactly how visible you just made yourself. The fear that greets you in the morning isn’t new information about the decision. It’s the invoice for yesterday’s courage. And if you have the kind of brain that runs hot and crashes hard anyway, (as mine does), the swing can feel extra convincing.
I have two or three times (and maybe more than that) cancelled my plans based on this fear. I’m talking entire concerts.
Which raises the real question: how do you tell a bravery hangover from a genuine warning? Because sometimes the morning dread is right, and you did over-commit.
Two tells. First, timing and shape: hangover fear arrives the morning after action, and it can be an overwhelming sweeping feeling of phrases like… Nobody cares. This will all collapse. Who do I think I am. A genuine warning is specific and boring. The venue deposit is nonrefundable and I haven’t confirmed the date. If your dread can’t name a particular, fixable problem, it’s the hangover talking. Second, the response test: hangover fear shrinks when you take small action. Real problems don’t shrink, they clarify.
The antidote is action. Haven’t you heard that before…cause I have. I tend to take too much action, hence the reason I tend to cancel stuff. But, I digress.
Not big, heroic action, and definitely not undoing yesterday. Just the next small thing, done before noon.
Here’s mine from that morning. I opened my notes app. Figured out the artwork. Planned the pre-sale incentives. Researched the after-party. None of it monumental. That’s kind of the point: the hangover is the feeling of being overdrawn, and small completed tasks are tiny deposits back into the account. Send one email. Check off one task. Each small act chips away at the fear, the weight, the murk.
The practice, then, in one line: the morning after any brave thing, do one unmonumental task related to it before noon, and only then decide how you feel about the decision. Never evaluate yesterday’s courage while the hangover is still in your bloodstream. You wouldn’t let actual-hangover-you make major life rulings at 8am. Extend the same policy here.
By midday, most days, I feel lighter. The hangover isn’t gone entirely, but it no longer defines the day. And the feeling, remember, was never permanent anyway. It’s weather. A fog of self-doubt passing through. It might be back tomorrow by the way. I’ve been doing this for thirty years and it’s still very hard.
This is the rhythm of creative living: momentum, fear, action, repeat. It doesn’t get easier. It gets clearer. Bravery isn’t a one-time act. It’s a habit, something you do even when you don’t feel like it, especially when you don’t feel like it. The soaring high, the inevitable crash, the steady climb back up. Over and over again.
Thanks for reading, (mind ♥️ing it?),
MMB
My Current Obsessions A little treat for making it to the end.
📖 Reading: The Mountain Is You by Brianna Weist
📺 Watching: DTF on HBO Max
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