Coaching practices for Being Away Restoration
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Being Away Restoration, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I "take a break" but I’m still sitting right where the work is, with my to-do list staring at me, so my mind never actually lets go
- I laughed at something today and immediately felt like a traitor
- There’s no forest near me so I figure I’m out of luck, but there’s a river path and a fountain in the square I always walk past
- My day off fills up with errands and chores and life admin, and I call it rest, but it’s just a different to-do list
- I never fully clock out
Practices that may help
- Get "being away" psychological distance
Use a setting that feels removed from your usual demands, not just physically different.
Attention Restoration in Nature - Deliberately take time off from grief
Give yourself genuine permission to engage with ordinary life — this is restoration orientation, not avoidance.
The Dual Process Model of Grief, Made Practical - Seek both green and blue space
Include water settings, not only greenery, in your restorative time.
Attention Restoration in Nature - Choose true rest, not just different work
Fill the day with genuinely restorative activity, not a second to-do list.
Sabbath: A Weekly Day of Rest - Attention Restoration in Nature
Attention Restoration Theory (Rachel and Stephen Kaplan) holds that directed attention — the effortful focus you use for work — fatigues with use, and natural environments help it recover because they hold attention gently ("soft fascination") without demanding it. There is real experimental support for cognitive and mood benefits, though effect sizes and mechanisms are still debated. - Take a full rest day weekly
One complete day off from work — including mental work — resets capacity better than partial breaks.
Deliberate Rest - Match your self-care to what your current season demands
Spring requires stimulus and novelty; autumn requires depth and consolidation — what restores you changes.
Seasons of Life - Identify and address secondary stressors
Name the practical, identity, and relational challenges the loss has created — and work on them as restoration.
The Dual Process Model of Grief, Made Practical - Conduct a habit audit after any major disruption
After illness, travel, or any routine disruption, deliberately audit which habits are still active and reinstall those that lapsed.
The Habit Discontinuity Effect - Apply explicit values criteria before reinstating any technology
Reinstate a technology only if it clearly serves something you genuinely value — not merely because you used to have it.
The Digital Declutter, Made Practical
Related concerns
- Restoration Needs Change
Spring requires stimulus and novelty; autumn requires depth and consolidation — what restores you changes.
Match your self-care to what your current season demands
- Restoration Orientation Tasks
Attention Restoration Theory (Rachel and Stephen Kaplan) holds that directed attention — the effortful focus you use for work — fatigues with use, and natural environments help it recover because they hold attention gently ("soft fascination") without demanding it. There is real experimental support for cognitive and mood benefits, though effect sizes and mechanisms are still debated.
- Attention Restoration In Nature At Work
Attention Restoration Theory (Rachel and Stephen Kaplan) holds that directed attention — the effortful focus you use for work — fatigues with use, and natural environments help it recover because they hold attention gently ("soft fascination") without demanding it. There is real experimental support for cognitive and mood benefits, though effect sizes and mechanisms are still debated.
- Dual Process Model Restoration
The Dual Process Model (DPM), developed by Margaret Stroebe and Henk Schut, describes healthy grief as oscillation between two orientations: loss-oriented (engaging with the pain of losing the person) and restoration-oriented (attending to the practical and identity challenges of life without them). The model is well-regarded in grief research and provides a framework for understanding why taking breaks from grief is healthy, not avoidant.
- How Nature Restores Attention
Attention Restoration Theory (Rachel and Stephen Kaplan) holds that directed attention — the effortful focus you use for work — fatigues with use, and natural environments help it recover because they hold attention gently ("soft fascination") without demanding it. There is real experimental support for cognitive and mood benefits, though effect sizes and mechanisms are still debated.
- Loss Orientation Restoration Orientation
Give yourself genuine permission to engage with ordinary life — this is restoration orientation, not avoidance.
Deliberately take time off from grief
Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.