Wellbeing in Real Life brings together insights from contemporary science, lifestyle medicine, traditional wisdom, embodied practice, and coaching, using each as a lens to explore what supports the whole person.
Many lenses. Many paths. One whole person.
I’ve spent years studying, teaching, practicing, and refining this work—with students, colleagues, patients, family, and friends, and in my own life.
I’ve learned that wellbeing becomes most meaningful when it is personal: when ideas move beyond information and into daily life, lived experience, small practices, reflection, and community.
There is no single path to health and wellbeing, and no one tradition holds every answer. In this course, I bring together insights from contemporary science, traditional healing wisdom, embodied practice, and coaching, along with 50 simple practices, so you can explore what resonates, discover what supports you, and create an approach that works in your real life.
This 9-week course offers 50 foundational practices you can try, adapt, and return to that are grounded in science, informed by tradition, and designed for real life.
Now enrolling: Founding Cohort | September 2026
Enrollment is limited to keep the experience personal, interactive, and supportive.
9 Doorways Into Real-Life Wellbeing
Each week, we’ll explore one dimension of wellbeing as part of an interconnected whole.
We’ll begin with a strong foundation in contemporary science, then widen the lens to include whole-person health, Traditional Chinese Medicine, mind-body medicine, behavior change, and practices you can experience for yourself.
Each session includes a consistent rhythm:
- A brief personal check-in or self-reflection
- Distilled science translated into real life
- Traditional and integrative wisdom
- 5 to 6 simple but powerful evidence-informed practices
- Tiny habits and behavior change tools
- The option to make one small personal, private pledge
- Reflection, conversation, and shared learning
- Room for joy, curiosity, and real-life experimentation
We begin and end each session with a practice, so you have a chance to arrive, settle, participate, and leave differently than when you came in.
What We'll Explore Together
Begins September 30th, 2026 - Wednesdays 5:30–7:00 PM ET - 9 weekly live sessions on Zoom
Each session is live, interactive, and designed to include teaching, practice, reflection, conversation, and time for questions.
This is a smaller group experience, intentionally limited so the course can feel personal, supportive, and engaging.
Live attendance is encouraged because so much of the course comes alive through practice and conversation. But life happens. If you miss a class, recordings will be available so you can return to the material and practices at your own pace.
What You'll Receive
What's Included
This is more than 9 classes.
It is a guided learning experience designed to help you explore wellbeing through multiple lenses in a way that is practical, personal, evidence-informed, and deeply connected to real life.
You'll receive:
9 live, interactive classes
Weekly sessions with teaching, practice, reflection, and conversation.
Lifetime access to all class recordings
Return to the teachings and practices whenever you need them.
Downloadable slides and teaching materials for every class
Clear, accessible materials to support your learning.
A course workbook for reflection and real-life application
A place to gather insights, track what you notice, and explore what works for you.
5 to 6 simple but powerful evidence-based practices each week
Practices drawn from lifestyle medicine, Traditional Chinese Medicine, mind-body medicine, integrative health, and behavior change.
Tiny habits and small personal pledges
Gentle tools to help you bring the work into daily life without overwhelm.
Ongoing online Q&A and discussion space
A way to stay connected, ask questions, and learn with others between classes.
Curated resources and practical tools for each wellbeing dimension
So you can continue exploring without having to sort through all the noise yourself.
Certificate of Completion
For those who complete the course and would like documentation of participation.
This course is designed to be:
- Interconnected: because health does not happen in silos
- Experiential: because insight deepens through practice
- Personal: because what works is different for each of us
- Curiosity-driven: because lasting change grows through exploration, not rigid rules
- Supportive: because we learn better together
- Joyful: because wellbeing should not feel like punishment
Estimated value: $1,500+
Founding Cohort pricing begins at $497
Life happens, and that’s okay.
All sessions will be recorded, and you’ll have lifetime access to revisit them whenever you need to.
Many people find that recordings actually become an important part of the learning experience. You may want to return to a teaching, repeat a practice, listen again when something feels more relevant, or move through the material at a pace that works better for your life.
You’re welcome to attend live whenever you can.
And when you can’t, you can still stay connected to the course, the practices, and the learning.
Who This Course Is For
This course is for you if you want to feel better, know yourself more deeply, and explore whole-person wellbeing with curiosity and practice in a supportive community.
You may be here because you want to feel better in your own body.
You may be supporting someone you love.
You may be a practitioner, caregiver, educator, or health professional who wants to deepen your understanding of lifestyle medicine and whole-person health to better support yourself and those you care for.
You may simply sense that there has to be another way, one that is more personal, more practical, more humane, and more connected to your actual life.
This course is for:
- People who want to explore small, everyday practices that can make a real difference
- People who are tired of one-size-fits-all wellness advice
- People navigating stress, fatigue, pain, burnout, or ongoing health concerns
- People who want to reclaim a more active role in their own wellbeing
- Caregivers supporting family members or loved ones
- Health and wellness professionals who want a practical, whole-person approach
- Anyone who wants to learn in community, reflect honestly, and try what feels possible
If you are looking for a place to explore what supports your body, mind, spirit, relationships, environment, and daily life, you are in the right place.
I’ve spent decades exploring how contemporary science, Traditional Chinese Medicine, mind-body medicine, coaching, and whole-person health can work together to support real people in real life. My work translates these different approaches into practical tools that help people feel better in their bodies, calmer and steadier in their minds, and more connected to their lives.
I was part of the early wave of practitioners to become board-certified in Lifestyle Medicine, and I’ve continued to widen the lens ever since—bringing together the most useful insights from many traditions rather than relying on any single path.
Today, I practice at The Zen Den Community Acupuncture Clinic, where I work with patients navigating pain, stress, fatigue, burnout, and chronic health concerns. Again and again, I see how powerful small, consistent, meaningful practices can be when they are connected to the whole person.
I bring decades of experience in clinical care, teaching, coaching, and whole-person health to this work, along with board certification in lifestyle medicine, acupuncture, and health and wellness coaching.
But what matters most is this:
I don’t just teach this work.
I live it.
In my own life, I’ve relied on lifestyle and traditional medicine and integrative practices to support my health, manage autoimmune disease, and move through the many transitions of midlife, aging, family, caregiving, stress, uncertainty, and change. I’ve also seen this work support people I love, my patients, my students, and the communities I’ve served.
This course brings together what I’ve learned over many years: the science, the traditions, the practices, the lived experience, and the deep respect I have for each person’s ability to discover what truly supports them.
I would be honored to share it with you.
You can check out some of my publicly available work here:
Pricing + Accessibility
Founding Cohort Pricing
This first cohort is intentionally small so the experience can be personal, interactive, and supportive.
Sign up before September 15th with the code EARLYBIRD and save 10%.
$497
Wellbeing in Real Life Course
Learn how to integrate practices that will improve your health and wellbeing.
Enrollment is limited to preserve a highly interactive, personal, and supportive experience.
Accessibility & Scholarships
I believe this work should be available to everyone.
A limited number of scholarships are available.
If cost is a barrier, please reach out. I’m happy to have a confidential conversation. You can email me at ruthannrusso@gmail.com
In this course, you’ll be invited to try 50 evidence-informed practices over 9 weeks, notice how they feel, reflect on what supports you, and build a personal toolbox you can return to again and again.
Some practices may become part of your daily rhythm.
Some may be helpful in a particular season.
Some will be there when you need them later.
You’ll:
- be invited to keep what works.
- learn the science.
- experience the practices.
- reflect on what matters.
- learn in community.
And you’ll create a personal toolbox of practices you can use, adapt, and return to long after the course ends.
Wednesdays beginning September 30th, 2026
Join Us
Bring your curiosity.
Come explore your whole self: your body, mind, spirit, relationships, environment, and daily life.
Together, we’ll learn, practice, reflect, experiment, and make room for what supports real wellbeing in ways that are meaningful, doable, personal, and real.
Wellbeing in Real Life
Bringing many ways of knowing together for whole-person wellbeing.
“Science, wisdom, and practice. One integrated path to wellbeing.”