Why Musicians Crash After the Stress Ends

When the semester ends. When the tour wraps. When the show closes.

Many musicians expect relief.

Instead, what arrives is something quieter and more complicated to name. Fatigue. Emptiness. Guilt for not “using the time well.” A sense of collapse when nothing is actually wrong.

This is not a personal failure. And it is not laziness.

During long periods of pressure, the nervous system adapts. High stress becomes the baseline. Chemicals that support focus, urgency, and performance carry us through. When the external demand disappears, the system is suddenly left without the stimulus it organized itself around.

What we experience as a “crash” is often the absence of those chemicals and signals.

No one teaches musicians what comes after the push. We’re trained for intensity, not recovery.

And so the end of stress can feel more destabilizing than the stress itself.

In a recent session, I walked through what’s actually happening in the body during these post-stress periods and how musicians can support themselves without pathologizing rest or forcing productivity.

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Managing the Post-Stress Crash: Supporting the Nervous System After the Semester, Tour, or Run of a Show