The Connection Cure

The Prescriptive Power of Movement, Nature, Art, Service and Belonging

De: Julia Hotz

Narrado por: Lessa Lamb

*A NEXT BIG IDEA CLUB MUST-READ*
*A HARVARD PUBLIC HEALTH MAGAZINE BEST BOOK OF 2024*

In this combination of diligent science reporting, moving patient success stories, and surprising self-discovery, journalist Julia Hotz helps us discover the lasting and life-changing power of social prescribing.

Traditionally, when we get sick, health care professionals ask, “What’s the matter with you?” But around the world, teams of doctors, nurses, therapists, and social workers have started to flip the script, asking “What matters to you?” Instead of solely pharmaceutical prescriptions, they offer “social prescriptions”—referrals to community activities and resources, like photography classes, gardening groups, and volunteering gigs.

The results speak for themselves. Science shows that social prescribing is effective for treating symptoms of the modern world’s most common ailments—depression, ADHD, addiction, trauma, anxiety, chronic pain, dementia, diabetes, and loneliness. As health care’s de facto cycle of “diagnose-treat-repeat” reaches a breaking point, social prescribing has also proven to reduce patient wait times, lower hospitalization rates, save money, and reverse health worker burnout. And as a general sense of unwellness plagues more of us, social prescriptions can help us feel healthier than we’ve felt in years.

As the first book on social prescribing, The Connection Cure empowers you to find, experience, and implement this revolutionary medicine in your own community. While touring the globe to investigate the spread of social prescribing to over thirty countries, Hotz meets people personifying its revolutionary potential: an aspiring novelist whose art workshop helps her cope with trauma symptoms and rediscover her joy; a policy researcher whose swimming course helps her taper off antidepressants and feel excited to wake up in the morning; an army vet whose phone conversations help him form his only true friendship; and dozens more. The success stories she finds bring a long-known theory to life: if we can change our environment, we can change our health. By reconnecting to what matters to us, we can all start to feel better.

Reseñas de la Crítica

"Narrator Lessa Lamb exuberantly presents journalist Julia Hotz’s reporting on the topic of social prescribing, which is founded on the belief that socialization is vitally important to good health. Hotz even believes that joyful activities and community can banish symptoms of illness. Lamb recounts patients’ stories of being treated for their ills using movement, nature, art, service, and bonding with others. In a compassionate and youthful tone she channels the pain of feeling ill and the joy of finding relief. The audiobook also includes the history of social prescribing and its current practice all over the world. Particularly interesting is Hotz’s analysis of social prescribing in the U.S. Lamb clearly delivers Hotz’s message of healing."

Overall message

I liked how she wrapped it up at the end…and introducing me to ‘Skip the Smallltalk’