Everybody knows too much stress is bad for you. But most people are only thinking about the obvious stuff, work deadlines, hard conversations, life being a lot. What most people don’t realize is that stress is so much bigger than that, and it’s affecting your body and your health in ways you probably haven’t connected yet.

Here’s a helpful way to think about it. You have a bucket. Everything in your life goes into that bucket, and I mean everything. Your job, your relationships, your workouts, your sleep, even fun stuff like going out with friends. It all counts. It all takes something from you.

When that bucket starts overflowing, your body starts to struggle. You get sick more easily. Injuries start happening out of nowhere. Your mental health takes a hit. You find yourself reaching for coping mechanisms that don’t actually help. Your body is not being dramatic, it’s just full.

So what do you actually do about it?

Start with the basics that are mostly in your control. Are you sleeping enough? Eating enough? Drinking water like a person who respects themselves? Taking any time at all that is just for you? Stop doom scrolling the horror that is the world. These things sound simple but they are genuinely the foundation. If all of them are a mess, don’t try to fix everything at once, pick one and start there.

Then look at where else your bucket is getting filled up unnecessarily. Work is a big one. Some of it you can’t control, but a lot of people are adding to their own stress by never actually disconnecting. The Slack message at 9 pm can wait. You are allowed to have an end to your day.

You can also work on building a bigger bucket. Healthy habits, actual recovery, things that genuinely refill you rather than drain you, over time those things increase your capacity to handle more without hitting overflow.

And when life is genuinely a lot right now, your workouts should reflect that. You don’t have to go hard all the time. Scale it back a little. Move your body because it helps, but give yourself permission to not treat every session like you have something to prove.

That random injury you got doing something completely mundane? Probably not as random as it seemed.