Coaching practices for The Two Process Model of Sleep After a Loss

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Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

  • I keep my head down and stay busy so I never actually feel the loss, and now it ambushes me at random and won’t metabolize
  • I deal with my grief by doing and fixing rather than weeping, and everyone keeps treating that as cold or in denial
  • I’ve thrown everything at my sleep
  • After a rough night I go to bed early, nap in the afternoon, sleep in on the weekend to make up for it
  • I laughed at something today and immediately felt like a traitor

Practices that may help

  1. The Two-Process Model of Sleep
    Alexander Borbély’s two-process model describes sleep as the interaction of two independent systems: Process S (homeostatic sleep pressure, which builds throughout waking hours like a battery draining) and Process C (the circadian clock, which gates sleep propensity in a 24-hour rhythm). Good sleep requires both processes to align — sleep pressure high and the clock in its nighttime phase simultaneously. The model is well established in sleep science.
  2. The Dual Process Model of Grief, Made Practical
    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.
  3. Deliberately engage loss-oriented work
    Set aside dedicated time to directly face the grief — the emotions, the absence, the meaning of the loss.
    The Dual Process Model of Grief, Made Practical
  4. Identify your natural grieving style and adjust for it
    Know whether you tend toward more loss or more restoration orientation — and compensate accordingly.
    The Dual Process Model of Grief, Made Practical
  5. Use the two-process model to diagnose your specific sleep problem
    Identify whether your sleep issue is a Process S problem, a Process C problem, or both — because the fixes are different.
    The Two-Process Model of Sleep
  6. Build homeostatic sleep pressure by staying awake
    Resist napping late or sleeping in when you want to fix your sleep — consistent waking builds the pressure that makes sleep arrive.
    The Two-Process Model of Sleep
  7. 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
  8. 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
  9. Use vigorous daytime activity to build a clean Process S curve
    Physical and mental activity during the day steepen the sleep pressure curve, making evening sleepiness arrive on time.
    The Two-Process Model of Sleep
  10. Treat sleep as your primary resilience deposit
    Consistent, adequate sleep is the single highest-yield resilience deposit — it restores every system that adversity will draw on.
    The Resilience Bank Account, Made Practical

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