Improve Life PLLC

Improve Life PLLC We provide therapy & medication management to kids 10+, young adults, & pregnancy care both before and after 🤰

At Improve Life, our mission is to provide you with personalized healing designed specifically to enhance your life. We take the approach of high quality individualized care for a few patients rather than the “assembly-line” approach used to treat a large number of patients. Dr. Waggel specializes in women and adolescent mental health and helping patients to overcome tough life transitions. She wo

rks with adolescents, young adults, and women of all ages living with anxiety, depression, relationship problems, stress, self-esteem issues and more. Each patient will receive a uniquely made healthcare plan by a medical doctor who takes extra time to explore your needs. This model removes middlemen in order to focus completely on your needs. Improve Life’s practice model of one room and one physician leads to a reduction of unnecessary space and elimination of extra staff. Without these extra expenses, the physician is able to spend more time with patients. This relaxed pace leads to improved patient satisfaction and better treatment outcomes. Dr. Waggel is easily accessible and provides all of her patients with her contact information. You can see the same doctor every time and you do not have to worry about having to provide the same information over and over again. Appointment dates and times are very flexible and can even be made same-day by logging into your online account. We provide therapy, medication management and wellness strategies to adolescents, young adults, and women of all ages in Northern Virginia. Clients leave with a plan for achieving life goals and finding happiness. Therapy focuses – Depression, anxiety, self-esteem, personal growth and development, stress, career counseling, chronic illness, life transition, social anxiety and shyness, sleep disturbances, occupational difficulties, attention and concentration improvement, interpersonal skills and effective communication, relationship concerns, marital/family conflict, and mind-body issues

Medication management – If it is found after evaluation that medication would be of benefit, a carefully planned medication regimen will be discussed and carried out under close physician supervision. As Dr. Waggel is both a therapist and a medical doctor, you do not have to schedule a separate visit or pay another fee. Strategy for wellness – Stress reduction outline, coping skill formulation, nutrition plans, exercise plans, search for underlying issues (food allergies, infections, nutrient deficiencies), chronic fatigue treatment, energy regaining tactics, meditation exercises, spirituality exploration, lifestyle change, and skin health. Dr. Stephanie Waggel is a physician, author, motivational speaker and founder of Improve Medical Culture (IMC). IMC is a place where healthcare workers and patients can work together to improve the culture that currently exists in the medical field. They recently held a fundraiser to send inspiring messages and coffee to healthcare workers that had to work during the holidays. Dr. Waggel has also created a program to protect the rights of chronically ill doctors and medical students called the Physician Wellness Program (PWP). Dr. Waggel was named a Physician of the Year 2016 by Medscape and she has recently published articles with Physician Family Media and Kevin MD. Dr. Waggel has lived in the DC area for 10 years and I would like to become involved with the Northern Virginia community. She hosted and was a speaker for the National Day to Prevent Physician and Medical Student Su***de in Washington, DC. The goal of this day was to decrease the stigma of mental illness that is present in the healthcare field and honor those who have taken their lives. This was a national event that over 800 people participated in. Dr. Waggel was also filmed for the movie "Do No Harm" which exposes abuse that takes place in the medical education system. This year, she has been asked to speak for organizations such as Public Citizen, Care2, and One Story. Dr. Waggel is passionate about enhancing medical education, ending mental health stigma, and helping patients improve their lives. Dr. Waggel typically focuses on achieving life and career goals despite adversity, mental health education, and tips and tricks for premeds and medical students, depression, addiction, stress, sexual assault, discrimination and women’s health issues. She has a huge social media following and, you might say, she is very popular with the under 30 crowd on social media. She greatly enjoys working with young people as she believes helping them to overcome barriers in today’s world will make for a better tomorrow. If you are interested in learning more, please visit www.ImproveMedicalCulture.com There are links to some of her many publications and speeches. If you are interested in scheduling and appointment to see Dr. Waggel, please visit her website www.ImproveLifePLLC.com or contact her directly at (703) 988-5433.

recharge yourself with a quiet stroll through the park and smelling a rose or two 😊- Charlotte
04/24/2026

recharge yourself with a quiet stroll through the park and smelling a rose or two 😊- Charlotte

A growing body of psychological research shows time in nature can support mood, attention, and overall well-being.

This Earth Day, consider how you can build more moments of nature into your day.

Learn more: https://at.apa.org/oe2

04/23/2026

Not a pleasant conversation to have with your kid, but if you don’t talk to them about it they’ll learn from another kid or person from the internet and that info is not going to be accurate. -Dr. Waggel

With The Cochrane Library – We just got recognized as one of their top fans! The Cochrane Library is a collection of hig...
04/23/2026

With The Cochrane Library – We just got recognized as one of their top fans!
The Cochrane Library is a collection of high-quality, independent evidence to inform healthcare decision 🩺🩻⚕️🏥😷👩‍⚕️

We usually taper patients off of benzodiazepines prior to starting gabapentin. If you need help with this call us! 703 3...
04/23/2026

We usually taper patients off of benzodiazepines prior to starting gabapentin. If you need help with this call us! 703 344 0771
- Dr. Waggel

People prescribed gabapentinoids -- gabapentin or pregabalin -- had a higher risk of drug poisoning soon after they started treatment, especially if they took benzodiazepines or opioids concurrently, a study of 17,000 U.K. primary care patients showed.
https://www.medpagetoday.com/neurology/painmanagement/120841

04/23/2026

Happy Earth Day - Charlotte

04/23/2026

Thoughts?

Any well fitting pair of athletic shoes can protect you from running injuries.  From my experience, shoes designed for y...
04/22/2026

Any well fitting pair of athletic shoes can protect you from running injuries. From my experience, shoes designed for your preferred type of running can drastically improve comfort and performance - Charlotte

🏃‍♀️ Do running shoes really prevent injuries? 🏃‍♂️

A Cochrane review looked at whether different types of running shoes can help prevent lower‑limb injuries in adult runners.

Running shoes are made with features intended to limit foot movement or reduce the forces on the body, with the aim of lowering the risk of injury. So, what does the evidence say?

Here is what we found:

👟Neutral/cushioned shoes may make little or no difference to injuries compared to minimalist shoes (low‐certainty evidence)

👟It is uncertain if motion control shoes reduce lower‐limb injuries compared with neutral/cushioned shoes

👟Soft midsole shoes may make little or no difference compared with hard midsole shoes (low‐certainty evidence)

👟It’s uncertain if stability shoes reduce injury compared with neutral/cushioned shoes

👟It is uncertain whether or not motion control shoes reduce injury compared with stability shoes

👟Prescribing running shoes and selecting on foot posture probably makes little or no difference (moderate‐certainty evidence)

There is no strong evidence that choosing a particular kind of running shoe will help you avoid injury. More high‑quality research is needed.

Read more about it here👉️ https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD013368.pub2/full -abs-0002

04/22/2026

Songs in sign language!!

Looking for a way to keep your child busy but with something active and NOT brain rot? This video kept my 4 year old bus...
04/21/2026

Looking for a way to keep your child busy but with something active and NOT brain rot? This video kept my 4 year old busy for 25 minutes. -Dr. Waggel

1K likes. "Spring Mario Brain Break Party 🍄 Freeze Dance & Run 🍄 Floor is Lava 🍄 Just Dance 🍄 Mario Challenge"

A sample size of 2,092,926
04/21/2026

A sample size of 2,092,926

Prenatal acetaminophen exposure was not linked to offspring ADHD or ASD in sibling-matched analyses in participants from Taiwan.

fascinating to hear the accuracy of fetal movement detection from a smartphone, but I'm not sure it's fair to compare to...
04/21/2026

fascinating to hear the accuracy of fetal movement detection from a smartphone, but I'm not sure it's fair to compare to maternal perception. a mother has a whole lot going on in her body - Charlotte

much work still needs to be done in the field of Alzheimer's research  - Charlotte
04/20/2026

much work still needs to be done in the field of Alzheimer's research - Charlotte

🧠 A new Cochrane review of 17 clinical trials involving more than 20,000 people has found that anti-amyloid drugs likely show no clinically meaningful benefit.

People with Alzheimer’s disease have high levels of a protein known as amyloid beta in their brains, detectable before symptoms begin, but its role in disease progression is uncertain. Drugs have been developed to remove these proteins from the brain, under the theory that this would prevent or slow disease progression.

Early trials showed statistically significant results, but these did not translate into a meaningful difference for patients' cognition or daily life. On top of that, the drugs were linked to an increased risk of brain swelling and bleeding.

🧑‍🔬 The researchers are now calling for future Alzheimer's research to focus on completely different pathways.

Senior author, Edo Richard, Professor of Neurology at Radboud University Medical Centre, explained that he sees Alzheimer’s patients in his clinic every week and he wishes he had an effective treatment to offer them

💬 “Existing approved drugs offer some benefit for some patients, but there remains a high unmet need for more effective treatments. Sadly, anti-amyloid drugs do not offer this and bring additional risks. Given the absence of correlation between amyloid removal and clinical benefit, we need to explore other pathways to help address this devastating disease.”

IRCCS Istituto delle Scienze Neurologiche di Bologna Radboudumc

🔗 Read more: https://www.cochrane.org/about-us/news/anti-amyloid-alzheimers-drugs-show-no-clinically-meaningful-effect

Address

11250 Roger Bacon Drive
Reston, VA
20190

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 10pm
Tuesday 9am - 10pm
Wednesday 9am - 10pm
Thursday 9am - 7pm
Friday 9am - 7pm
Saturday 9am - 7pm

Telephone

+17039885433

Website

https://linktr.ee/improvemedicalculture

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