The Connection Cure: The Prescriptive Power of Movement, Nature, Art, Service, and Belonging

Julia has no issues articulating what so many of us understand and know is essential to health and wellbeing: connection. Whether that’s through nature, creativity, movement, voice, touch, belonging, or service. Most of us will recognise, either through our own experiences or that of others, if we remove these elements away from our lives…that disconnect will often present with negative health and wellbeing. These negative consequences are sometimes something medicine, in a pharmacological context, cannot remedy alone. Which is where social prescribing has evidenced its role in supporting people improve their health and wellbeing.

This book opened up an entirely new way of thinking about health and wellness for me. It's an inspiration to start being more intentional about the time I spend with others and doing hobbies I love. Julia makes clear how important feeling connected is for our overall health - plus there are tons of great ideas to get started :)

An incredibly eye opening read on how what matters to you can let you lead a much healthier and happier life. Hotz has such a way with words and story telling ability to keep you hooked and genuinely interested in the lives of the people stories shes sharing. I’ve already incorporate takeaways from the Connection Cute in my everyday life - a must read!

The Connection Cure offers an encouraging perspective to think about health holistically, diving into alternatives and enhancements to tradition medicine to improve well-being. Julia shares details of various success stories in an engaging, informational, and relatable way. This is a great call to action to be mindful in prioritizing social prescriptions, including self-prescribed. A must read!

I absolutely love this book. I work in healthcare and so many of the themes resonate with all of the issues we are dealing with in the healthcare system. Not only does this book teach the reader about ways to improve their health and well-being, it does so with beautiful and personal stories that paint a picture of what holistic healthcare can look like. In particular, I loved the chapter about mental health and the pharmaceutical industry. The author does an amazing job of telling the history of the development of psychiatric medications in this country in a way that is engaging and informative. She weaves this information into stories of patients who have benefited from alternative therapies through social prescribing. She does this in a non judgmental way, and emphasizes social prescribing as a complement to traditional medicine, emphasizing the benefit of utilizing all of these treatment strategies in caring for the whole patient. I strongly recommend this book for any reader, as the themes are so relevant to all of us. It is a breath of fresh air and an inspirational call to change for providers working in our struggling healthcare system.

This book feels like having a conversation with a friend. It's funny, relatable, eye opening and I learned so much! I love that this book really emphasizes how patients are whole people and deserve more wholistic and comprehensive options for managing their health and wellbeing. It's both a collective "we can do this" from the author while also a call to action for health care to take in not only the narrative success stories described in the book but also the hard data to show that social prescription really works. I already sent 2 colleagues a copy, gave my neighbor a copy after an impromptu chat about how they have been feeling, and plan to keep recommending this book to all my friends and family!

Julia is such a talented author and I can tell how much dedication and hard work she put into this book! It was very eye-opening to read about how much our social connections can impact our well-being to the point that I was looking up ways to get more involved in my community. I cannot give this book enough praise for how well written it was and for how deep the content goes. I would highly recommend this book to anyone as I felt so inspired and hopeful when I finished reading it!