The Burnout Burnut Reportby

According to the World Health Organization, Burnout is “a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.” And even though it certainly doesn’t feel great, the WHO notes that burnout is not classified as a medical condition.

What are the signs of burnout? The World Health Organization characterizes burnout in three ways:

1. “Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion
2. Increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job
3. Reduced professional efficacy”

If only work was the only thing to blame. Based on our results, we found burnout can be any emotional, mental, and/or physical exhaustion caused by stress in general. And we all know, life is stressful (professionally and personally).

As America’s Hospitality Airline, we’re not just here to take you places, we’re here to help you reconnect with what matters most. We believe taking your time back matters. We conducted this research to better understand how burnout is affecting Americans, and what we can do about it.

Stress is the body’s immediate, natural response to a threat, change, or challenge. In small doses, stress is actually thought to be helpful. Burnout, on the other hand, happens after prolonged periods of stress. And it’s anything but helpful. It can leave you feeling empty, emotionally drained, and unable to keep up with everyday life.

As the meditation app Calm puts it, “stress is like a battery running low, burnout is like the battery being completely flat.” Calm also outlines that stress tends to have physical symptoms, while burnout can manifest more deeply, impacting one’s emotional state.

Americans have a reputation for working, A LOT. We’re an always-on, always optimizing culture that is 20% more stressed out than our Canadian counterparts. This can be for a variety of reasons, one of which is that the U.S. is one of the few countries that doesn’t have guaranteed paid time off annually. Hey, we don’t make the rules.

A lot of us. We found that over a third, 76% of Americans to be exact, have dealt with burnout.

Our Methodology: We surveyed 2,000 American adults aged 18–64 living in the U.S. Quotas for gender, age, and household income mirror U.S. census data. Sample targeting and data weighting were also used to more accurately represent ethnicity and U.S. census regions. Individuals in sensitivity industries (advertising, PR, marketing research, airline, travel agency) were excluded.

The survey was fielded August 17–25, 2026.

A vacation deficit, as defined by our research, is the gap between the amount of time you typically take off and the amount of time you actually need to get some relief from stress or burnout.

We found that 36% of people who have taken a vacation of two or more nights were in a vacation deficit, falling short by an average of 2.9 days. In other words, many of us are taking time away, but not enough for our minds and bodies to fully reset.

We’re happy to say it absolutely can and does. While travel isn’t a cure-all for burnout, our research shows that a meaningful break from everyday demands can create space for rest and connection that allows people to regain a sense of control over their time.

The research found that 86% of people who have taken a vacation of 2+ nights say vacations are effective in relieving stress or burnout. Taking a vacation of 2+ nights was also one of the more highly-rated actions for dealing with burnout, second only to regular exercise when people ranked what felt most effective.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a magic number. But among people who have taken a vacation of two or more nights, the average answer was about five consecutive days to get some relief from stress or burnout.

This does not mean that a shorter break has no value, but it does show that longer, uninterrupted time away may provide more relief. Adding even an extra day to a trip, building in time to decompress, or extending a long weekend can make all the difference.