For two days, she did nothing. She slept until nine. She ate toast with jam while watching gulls fight over a crab. She read the first fifty pages of three different books, abandoning each without guilt. She didn’t check email once. It was, truly, indulgent.

Consider "Sarah," a 12-year veteran from Ohio. By March, she was experiencing depersonalization (a classic burnout symptom). She couldn't remember if she had taught fractions or not. Her principal suggested "mindfulness coloring."

He spent the next four hours in the library, helping students construct a sprawling shantytown out of encyclopedias and dusty atlases. They called it "The Resort." He drank lukewarm cocoa, indulged in a debate about whether a hot dog was a sandwich (he ruled it was a taco), and patched together a fragile peace with the chaos of adolescence.