Noise-cancelling headphones prove how much sound you were carrying without noticing. Some stress is like that too.

You only learn the weight of background noise in the second it stops. The hum of a train, a fan, a room full of people was costing you something the whole time, and the proof arrives as sudden relief. Low-level stress behaves the same way: constant enough to stop registering, heavy enough that putting it down feels like a different body.

Find out what you are carrying by setting it down. One evening with notifications off, one day away from the group chat, one hour in a quiet room. Notice the relief, because the relief is the measurement. Then decide which of those hums you could switch off more often.