Your Next Trip Can Be Almost as Easy as a Nap (and a Lot More Restorative)

It’s almost too easy to get home from work, drop your bag on the couch, drop yourself down next to it, grab the remote from the spot on the coffee table where you left it yesterday, put on a workplace comedy — a choice you have decided not to examine — and doze off somewhere in your eleventh rewatch. Deciding to take a post-work nap takes about four seconds. The actual shuteye follows almost immediately. For a lot of us, that’s how we deal. When the Burnout Report conducted by Southwest Airlines® asked people what helps take the edge off burnout, 31 percent said regular exercise, 26 percent said a nap, 25 percent said watching TV, and 24 percent said time with family. A vacation of two or more days came in at 22 percent. TAKE THE 60-SECOND BURNOUT QUIZ TO GET YOUR BURNOUT SCORE That ranking makes sense. A nap costs nothing, and your favorite show is one button away. A vacation, on the other hand, requires planning. You have to pick dates, pick a place, and put in a PTO request. Just thinking about all that is enough to send you back to the couch. But notice what the list is actually measuring. It’s a list of what people reach for — and the couch wins because the couch is right there. It isn’t a list of what works. When the same survey asked people who had actually taken a trip of two or more nights, 86 percent said it helps keep burnout at bay. The nap ranks higher because it’s easier, not because it’s more effective. “86% of people who have taken a trip of two or more nights say it helps keep burnout at bay1.” So the trick is making the trip a little more like the nap: fewer steps, fewer decisions, less time between thinking about it and doing it. And that’s the part Southwest® can help with. Here’s what that actually looks like. Go to airplanemode.Southwest.com tonight and pull up the Burnout Quiz. It takes about a minute, it asks where you’d be flying from, and it hands back a burnout score along with a few places you can reach from your airport — Southwest flies to more than 100 of them, so the pick-a-place step is less of a step than it sounds. GET YOUR BURNOUT SCORE AND PLAN YOUR NEXT TRIP Then open your calendar and hunt for one weekend where two PTO days would buy you four nights. Send the request before you can talk yourself out of it. Start to finish, that’s about one episode of the show you were going to rewatch anyway. And with no change or cancel fees2, future you still has flexibility if you need it. None of this means giving up the couch, mind you. It’ll be there when you get home tonight. Just pull up the quiz before you sit down this time. 1Based on a Southwest-sponsored survey fielded August 17–25, 2026 with 2,001 adults aged 18–64 living in the U.S. 2 Fare difference may apply. Basic fare roundtrip bookings must be canceled or upgraded. Cancel 10+ minutes before departure to avoid forfeiture of travel funds.