By Vanessa Caceres, Feb. 4, 2022

Valerian is a plant originally from Asia and Europe, although it’s now also grown in North America. Valerian root has been used throughout time for its calming properties, and has earned the nickname “nature’s Valium,” says Dr. Alex Dimitriu, who’s double board-certified in psychiatry and sleep medicine and the founder of Menlo Park Psychiatry & Sleep Medicine in Menlo Park, California.

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By Emily Laurence, FEB 2, 2022

Dr. Alex Dimitriu, MD, a dual board-certified psychiatrist and sleep doctor, says there are many ways to activate the vagus nerve, which will then send a body-wide signal that it’s time to relax. One popular way, he says, is deep breathing. “Breathing deeply from your diaphragm so your stomach expands outward is one very common way to activate the vagus nerve,” he says.

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By Ryan Castillo, January 31, 2022

It’s increasingly hard these days to find LED bulbs that are the color of candles or sunset (>3000k is like a blue sky, and 2200k is hard to find), but in reality, it’s those lights that are more amber hues that help our bodies realize it’s the evening and time for sleep. Find the warmest dimmable bulbs you can, and consider blackout shades. Good sleep requires a cool, dark bedroom, so do your best to create one. – Menlo Park Psychiatry & Sleep Medicine 

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By Heidi Borst,  Jan 28, 2022

What Are the Four Stages of Piaget’s Cognitive Development? Piaget studied how children develop mental models for the world around them as they grow, says Alex Dimitriu, M.D., who is double board-certified in psychiatry and sleep medicine and the founder of Menlo Park Psychiatry & Sleep Medicine in Menlo Park, California. “He was interested not in the information or knowledge acquired, but the structures and mental frameworks into which that knowledge could be applied,” says Dr. Dimitriu.

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By Dominique Michelle Astorino Jan 24, 2022

“Sleep quantity is as important as sleep quality,” says Alex Dimitriu, M.D., double board-certified psychiatrist and sleep medicine physician and founder of Menlo Park Psychiatry & Sleep Medicine. And while many substances (looking at you, wine) might help you feel sleepy, they can actually reduce your deep and REM sleep — two stages of sleep that are particularly beneficial to your brain and body’s overall wellbeing. But that doesn’t seem to be the case with CBD. “Some recent research has suggested that CBD may be beneficial to sleep, without negatively impacting sleep architecture [aka what determines the quality and restorative ability of sleep],” according to Dr. Dimitriu.

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By Sarah Bradley,  Jan. 20, 2022

While any SSRI or SNRI can cause discontinuation syndrome, the SNRI Effexor (venlafaxine) can be one of the trickiest to wean off, says psychiatrist and sleep medicine specialist Alex Dimitriu, MD, founder of Menlo Park Psychiatry & Sleep Medicine. “Venlafaxine is an excellent medication, but missed doses can give people ‘brain zaps’ and quick feelings of vertigo, which I’ve called ‘vestibular jitters,’” Dr. Dimitriu explains. “These go away, fortunately, but it can make it hard to stop venlafaxine in particular.” 

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Lauren Vinopal, Jan 15, 2022

On the latter count, doctors such as Alex Dimitriu, who specializes in psychiatry and sleep medicine, tend to recommend melatonin supplements even before something like Benadryl because the antihistamine “can disrupt sleep architecture by decreasing REM sleep,” he explains. By contrast, melatonin is a hormone produced in the brain that naturally increases about two hours before bedtime in order to relax us for sleep. Normally, the pineal gland produces enough melatonin, but there’s evidence that stress and anxiety inhibit this process, which short-term supplementation can balance out. 

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