Ruth Dottin, M.D. August 21, 2026 Lifestyle Psychiatry: Stress Management We have been going through a series on Lifestyle Psychiatry and have tackled the pillars of Diet, Exercise, and Sleep. Today, we will be diving into Stress Management and Mindfulness! Most of us have probably heard that stress can make your mental and physical health worse and have, at some point, received the advice to work on "stress management", but rarely are we given an explanation of why this matters or practical...
21 days ago • 3 min read
Ruth Dottin, M.D. August 14, 2026 Lifestyle Psychiatry: How to Fix Sleep and Circadian Rhythms In our last newsletter, we talked all about how to fix disrupted sleep and circardian rhythms. We talked about 6 interventions including: Light Exposure Meal and Metabolic Timing Temperature Stress Management Elimination of Substances Sleep Timing Behaviors I'll give you a sample of one below: 1. Light Exposure: As noted in the last newsletter, early morning light exposure tells the brain to trigger...
28 days ago • 1 min read
Ruth Dottin, M.D. July 31, 2026 Hyperbolic Tapering - Part 2 Hello all, Below is the second Newsletter on Hyperbolic Tapering. My next Newsletter will resume on 8/7/2026! In it, we will be talking all about how to improve sleep and regulate circadian rhythms! If you haver not yet, you can subscribe HERE. "Today will be the last email on Hyperbolic Tapering for a bit. I plan to transition to a topic around neurodivergence and/or lifestyle interventions next. If there is any topic that you want...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Ruth Dottin, M.D. July 24, 2026 Hyperbolic Tapering - part 1 Hello all! Here was one of my original emails from earlier this year. I am resending it here to make it available to everyone on this platform! "Hello all, Today, we are going to be talking about Receptor Occupancy and Hyperbolic Tapering - concepts that are applicable to MOST of our psychiatric medications (Benzodiazepines, antidepressants, antipsychotics, gabapentinoids, Z-drugs, etc.). Receptor Occupancy is the percentage of...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Ruth Dottin, M.D. July 17, 2026 Lifestyle Psychiatry: Sleep and Circadian Rhythms We have talked about the role of diet and exercise as powerful lifestyle interventions for mental health and today we are going to be talking all about Sleep and regulation of Circadian Rhythms! Why is this so critical? Disrupted sleep and broken circadian rhythms aren't just symptoms of mental health conditions—they are major, active drivers of psychiatric disorders. Let's talk about how your Circadian rhythms...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
Ruth Dottin, M.D. July 10, 2026 Patient Exercise Handout In our Newsletter last week, we talked all about exercise as an intervention for mental health. We explored the best types of exercise, which (ideally) include a mixture of cardio, strength and mind-body exercises. While most of us know that exercise is amazing for mental health, there remain plenty of barriers to implementing this recommendation - time, money, equipment, safe spaces, motivation and more. In an effort to break down some...
2 months ago • 1 min read
Dr. Ruth Dottin July 3, 2026 Lifestyle Psychiatry: Exercise! Hello all! Last month, we completed our Lifestyle Psychiatry subseries on dietary interventions for mental health and today we will be jumping into the topic of Exercise! First, let's start with some definitions: What is the difference between physical activity and exercise? Physical activity is essentially any body movement that burns energy whereas Exercise is a more specific type of physical activity that involves a planned,...
2 months ago • 5 min read
Ruth Dottin, M.D. Hello all! During this past week, we finished out our series on Dietary Interventions for mental health by exploring different dietary eating patterns, like Keto, Carnivore, Paleo, Vegetarian/Vegan, Mediterranean and more! I have put together THIS resource for those of you who are interested in learning more about these dietary patterns as a mental health intervention either for yourself or for your patients. These can easily be used as patient handouts. Of course this...
3 months ago • 1 min read
Ruth Dottin, M.D. June 19, 2026 Lifestyle Psychiatry: Diet Eating Patterns and Mental Health Today will be our last Newsletter on the topic of diet as a lifestyle intervention for the treatment of mental health. If you have missed the last few Newsletters, make sure to check then out on my Creator Profile! While there is no one right diet for everyone, there are a lot of different dietary eating patterns and trends that have claims around mental health - good and bad - so this newsletter with...
3 months ago • 6 min read
