Imagine you have a bucket, which represents you (it can be whatever colour you like!)
Water, representing each stress event, is poured into the bucket. Most buckets have room to hold some water but if the water keeps being poured in, the bucket will overflow. We need to identify what is filling the bucket. Stress isn't just limited to daily demands, like taking on a huge workload, deadlines, relationships, money etc. Stress exists in various forms including the lack of sleep. A good indication of being stressed out is trouble failing asleep or staying asleep.
If our water level is getting close to the top, this starts to be our breaking point. Luckily, our bucket has a tap at the bottom which represents our own individual coping techniques. The more readily we can open the tap, the easier it is to keep the water at optimal level.
Just because you aren’t on the verge of a mental breakdown does not mean that you are not stressed out. If you’ve been living with high stress for a while, you may even feel like you are totally fine and handling it well. Keep in mind that if you get to the point of feeling overwhelmed, your bucket is already overflowing.
The key here is learning balance and flexibility in your lifestyle to keep stress at an optimal level. If you take on more stress in one area (like a new project at work), you should consider reducing it somewhere else (maybe drop the intensity of your workouts).
You just have to recognize when water is pouring in and have a variety of ways to let it out.
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