This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - The Connection Cure: Social Prescribing, Loneliness, and Why Belonging Is Medicine with Julia Hotz | 373
Episode Date: December 24, 2025We’re calling BS on the idea that “health” is only pills, trackers, and willpower. In this conversation with journalist and TEDx speaker Julia Hotz, author of The Connection Cure, we dig into so...cial prescribing—evidence-based referrals to movement, nature, art, service, and belonging—that can lower stress, boost mood, and make our lives feel human again. Edgy truth: we’ve replaced community with convenience. The remedy? Re-connect to what matters to you and let your nervous system exhale. Julia advises Social Prescribing USA and Walk with a Doc, collaborates with the Solutions Journalism Network, and teaches in medical schools—turning research on connection into care that actually changes lives. We cover: What social prescribing actually is (no, your doctor isn’t forcing you to make friends) and why up to 80% of health is socially determined—think stress, access to green space, and community, not just clinic time. The five social-Rx categories: Movement, Nature, Art, Service, Belonging—and how most prescriptions blend at least two. A nature-based case study: how a 10-week outdoors program reduced insomnia, rumination, and stress—plus why time in nature can feel like it gives you time back. From “shoulds” to want to: questions that surface your personal Rx (awe/flow/glimmers, what lit you up as a kid, and where you’d spend two extra hours a week). Turning workouts into joy: travel-style discovery walks at home, walking groups, or pickup games that deliver cardio and connection. Blue-zones energy without the gym membership: everyday movement, long chats, shared meals, and community as longevity multipliers. The U.S. landscape: why social prescriptions can complement meds (not replace them), and how orgs like Social Prescribing USA and Walk with a Doc are moving this forward. So whether your version of medicine looks like a morning hike, a pottery class, or finally joining that book club, the point isn’t perfection—it’s participation. Because when we choose connection over isolation and curiosity over compliance, we’re not just improving our health—we’re reclaiming our humanity. Thank you to our sponsors! Get 20% off your first order at curehydration.com/WOMANSWORK with code WOMANSWORK — and if you get a post-purchase survey, mention you heard about Cure here to help support the show! Visit beducate.me/womanswork69 and use code womanswork69 for 65% off the annual pass. Black Friday has come early at Cozy Earth! Right now, you can stack my code WOMANSWORK on top of their sitewide sale — giving you up to 40% off in savings. Connect with Julia: Website: https://www.hotzthoughts.com/ Social Prescribing: https://www.socialprescribing.co/ Book:https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Connection-Cure/Julia-Hotz/9781668030349?utm_source=chatgpt.com Related Podcast Episodes: Loneliness And The Value Of Connection with Kasley Killam | 218 The Power of Conscious Connection with Talia Fox | 263 The Power Of Connection with Tory Archbold | 105 Share the Love: If you found this episode insightful, please share it with a friend, tag us on social media, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform! 🔗 Subscribe & Review:Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
You're listening to the This Is Woman's Work podcast.
We're together.
We're redefining what it means, what it looks and feels like to be doing women's work
in the world today.
With confidence, curiosity, and the occasional desperate plea to the universe to just have
20 minutes of quiet where nobody needs anything from us, right?
Or is that just me because I'm an introvert?
I mean, I need quiet time.
I would almost rather read a new book than meet a new person.
I consider it a win when plans get rescheduled.
And my relationship with social interaction is, let's just say, complicated.
Very similar to my relationship with working out.
I dread it.
I try to get out of it.
Then I force myself to do it.
And then surprise, I love it and I feel amazing.
And I tell myself that I'll remember that next time.
But next time, the whole damn cycle starts over again.
And yet, despite being a committed introvert, I have become absolutely convinced that connection
is the cure to what ails us most, that most of us are aching for it, whether we realize it
or not. It's this real, meaningful human connection, caring, giving, receiving, hugging,
listening, all the stuff we're wired for and also somehow avoiding like the plague.
We've traded community for convenience, real life relationships for likes. And while we're out here
chasing supplements and superfoods and whatever wellness trend is going viral this week,
we're ignoring one of the most powerful contributors to our health and longevity. And that's
each other. What if instead of another pill or another product promising to change your life,
the thing you really need is a painting class or a swimming lesson or a walking group where
nobody's counting steps sounds a little too woo-woo or something that your most extroverted friend
you know the one who just won't shut up about whatever it is that's working for her would
suggest well here's the deal there's science behind this there's data there are actual prescriptions
being written for these very things and the woman on the cutting edge of these social prescriptions
is our guest today.
Julia Hatz is a journalist, TEDx, speaker,
and author of The Connection Cure,
the first book chronicling the science,
stories, and spread of social prescribing.
She works with the Solutions Journalism Network
and advises global health organizations
like Walk with a Doc and Social Prescribing USA.
Jules has taught in medical schools,
advised policymakers,
and given keynote speeches around the world,
and today she's here to help us explore
or what happens when we stop asking what's the matter with you
and start asking what matters to you?
So thank you for being here.
I'm going to kick us off by asking you to explain
what social prescription is
and a bit about the science that's supporting it
so we can understand what it is that we're actually talking about here.
Wow.
First of all, what an amazing introduction.
That was so good.
And there's so many things in there that I really want to touch on.
You know, as a woman in my 30s
who also feels like I just need a minute, there's no time, you know, what the heck is this social
prescribing business? How am I going to add that to my busy schedule? You know, I totally relate
to all that. And this leads us to like what actually is social prescribing. And at first, you know,
I had kind of heard the name and assumed that, wow, doctors are prescribing us. They're basically
forcing us to make friends. They're forcing us to socialize. And what I learned is actually that's not
where the name comes from. The name social prescribing comes from this idea that up to 80% of our health
is socially determined, meaning only 20% of our health comes down to what happens in the doctor's
office. The other 80% is a matter of how stressed we are. What's our lifestyle? Do we have access to
green space? All of these social environmental factors. So a social prescription then is any non-medical
resource or activity that seeks to address our social determinants of health. It could be everything
from an art class to cycling lessons to support for food and housing and, you know, child care.
All of these are considered social prescriptions. And as you teed up in the introduction, I think
the key here is really making it focused on what matters to a person, flipping the script
from what's the matter with you to what matters to you because you're so right, Nicole, that
For a lot of your listeners, I imagine, maybe for you to, you know, the thought of a doctor ordered
prescription to add to your busy schedule, you know, something that is social just for the sake
of being social, that might not sound super appealing. But if the doctor is really focused on what
matters to you and understands, okay, maybe you're a little bit more introverted. Maybe you have
all these scheduled demands. And it's going to prescribe you an activity that really means.
to where you're at, let's say a painting class where, you know, you could just sit there and
paint if you want or even silent reading circles. This is a big one. Then that I think is going
to be much more successful. You're more likely to follow it. And, you know, comes with all of these
health benefits that I could talk about. And I do want to talk about the health benefits. I just want
to make sure I'm understanding this correctly. So when I heard social prescriptions, I immediately went
to human connection, time with people, relationships.
But what I'm hearing you say is that's part of it.
What is missing for us?
What matters most?
What do we most need?
That's exactly it.
Yeah.
And I get that it's confusing both with the name social prescribing and the name of my book,
The Connection Cure.
But when we talk about connection, you know,
it's not just connection to large groups of people.
It can be a connection to one person.
It could be a connection to your environment.
And importantly, it could be a connection to your environment.
yourself, right? So, and it's true that in my book, I do mostly focus on group-based
activities involving movement, nature, art, service, belonging. These are kind of the five
categories that social prescriptions are most commonly in. But, you know, there's a whole gamut
of social prescriptions that really are focused on you reconnecting to yourself, you reconnecting to
your community, you reconnecting to the values that you want to live by and can improve your
health comparable to other kinds of prescriptions. Okay. Can you repeat the five categories?
Sure. So it's movement, you know, moving your body, nature, spending time in nature,
art, and that means, you know, music, that means film, that means writing. It could mean creating
art or receiving it. It means service is the fourth volunteer service and finally belonging, right?
So maybe it's dinner parties, maybe it's, you know, just really intentional conversations.
And more often than not, the social prescriptions involve a combination of those five things.
But in my book, I wanted to talk about all the evidence we have, even before this social prescribing
craze was a thing, suggesting that these five.
categories can improve both our physical health and our mental health.
Can you give some examples of where this has been proven to make a difference, have somebody
be healthier or maybe even cure an illness? Yeah, well, based on your, again, fantastic intro,
I will share an example that I imagine most of your listeners can relate to. And it talks about this
woman named Heather, who, you know, works three jobs, is the primary care.
for her grandparents is busy, is busy and, you know, is starting to feel in her body the
effects of that busyness and constant stress. She starts having insomnia. She starts having
these heart palpitations. And she goes to the doctor and what is the doctor tell her,
Heather, I think you're stressed. And Heather says, yeah, I couldn't tell you that. Like, I'm sure
your listeners have heard this tale before because all of our modern lives, particularly the
of women in this, you know, sort of age group are stressful. But instead of just saying, you know,
be less stressed, this doctor happened to buy into a local nature prescribing program. And this was
really important for Heather in particular because if you had asked Heather what mattered to her,
if Heather had two more hours in the week, what would she spend it doing, you know, what did she
love to do as a kid? It was spending time in nature. And so the doctor actually prescribes her
this 10 weeks sort of nature prescription course
where they do everything from nature walks
to nature poetry to park cleanups
and lo and behold in those 10 weeks
Heather you know
some of her symptoms are still there
but many of them disappear she's able to sleep better
through the night she's made friends
something that she felt she hasn't had time to do
and she's reconnected to herself
and to this habit and hobby that she loved
as a kid. Now, somebody might hear that and they think, how did Heather have time to do that?
I thought Heather worked three jobs and she didn't have time for that. Well, here's the funny thing
about time in nature. It gives us the perception that we have more time because of the way it uniquely
calms our nervous system and restores our attention. This is not just hearsay. I mean,
anecdotally, I'm sure you can imagine that most people, when they spend some time in nature,
away from their emails, away from their phones, away from many stresses of modern life.
Anecdotally, they feel better.
But there's some really interesting research suggesting that when we spend time in nature,
our levels of cortisol production, the stress hormone decrease.
We decrease activity in our subgenital prefrontal cortex,
which is the part of the brain associated with rumination.
Some studies even show that spending time in nature has attention benefits on par with
making riddle in, you know, an ADHD medication.
So time and time again, we're seeing this.
And that's just one example of how, you know, the doctor could have just said,
hey, Heather, your stress, maybe trispedic some more time in nature.
But the social prescription for this specific 10-week course where there's people like her
meeting once a week, I think is what made the difference here.
Yeah.
Again, I think we can all relate to the stress and the busyness.
I mean, I go to a doctor and I think there's just an automatic assumption.
that I'm going to be stressed, right? And like, I have to, I'm like, no, I'm not particularly
feeling stressed right now. And they're like, shots by it, right? But what I find maybe challenging
and maybe this just is a me thing. But when we think about movement, art, nature, belonging,
service, there are things in all of those categories that I think we do because we think we're
supposed to or because we have to. It feels like some of the social prescription is about
figuring out what matters most. So it's less about have to and more about want to. Yeah.
How the hell do we figure out what we want to do? I mean, we're so busy. I don't think we know
that anymore. We know all the things we have to do. We know all the things we should do, what we're
supposed to do. How do we figure out what we want to do? And is that an important element of figuring
out what our social prescription might be? Oh, gosh. I love these questions. And, you know,
first of all, I just want to say, like, that is absolutely true, particularly for me,
movement and exercise. It is not a novel idea that, hey, we should be moving our bodies more.
I mean, doctors have been telling us that for 50 years. But I talk in my book about the history of
how we've got about this the wrong way. Moving our bodies used to be a fun thing. It used to be a
free thing. It used to be a thing where we didn't feel shame or stigma about our bodies.
And now you look at the research and, you know, the places that are most people culturally today do that, such as in gyms, there's so much stigma.
There's something called gym-timidation, right?
This idea that women in particular don't want to go to the gym.
They're less likely to work out because they're self-conscious about their body image.
Gyms are also really expensive.
And like, let's be honest, not that fun, right?
I mean, I talk in my book about how, like, I remember being a kid in gym class.
growing up and having to do like run the mile or do these like pushups and strength tests.
And it made me really dread physical activity, found out that that has an interesting history
in like our military, you know, our nation's kind of like military preparedness curriculum.
Anyway, that's a whole tangent.
But you're absolutely right that like for everyone, particularly for women, it's not a novel
idea that we should be doing these things, particularly movement.
But when we flip the script and we say, you know, this is not a what you should do, this is what do you want to do, the conversation changes. And on my website, social prescribing.co, which is, you know, the website that chronicles the research and the resources of the book, I recommend some specific questions you could ask. I think I've already sort of referenced two of them, which is if you had two more hours in the week and you couldn't say sleeping,
What would you spend it doing?
What was something that you loved to do as a kid but haven't had a chance to do since?
What was the last activity you engaged in that you felt in a complete state of flow?
Like nothing could interrupt your attention.
And it may take a little digging.
And, you know, even as I asked those, nothing might be coming up.
There's like a bunch of, I think, 10 questions on the website you could ask.
But sometimes it also helps to lead with the opportunity.
What are you struggling with? Are you struggling with your attention? Well, then time and nature
has been shown to really help with that. And I recommend, you know, 20 different activities you
can do in nature. Are you struggling with anxiety? Are you struggling with something you're worried
about? Well, creating art and engaging with the arts has been shown to really help with
managing anxiety. Are you feeling stuck? Are you feeling sad? You know, and me and my book,
I talk about getting over a breakup. Well, actually moving our bodies has been shown to be really, really
good for that. So I think you can approach it in either of those two ways, either the what
matters to you or, you know, what's a part of your life that you'd like to improve? And you'll
converge on the movement nature, art, service, and belonging in some way. And I always recommend
just starting there. You know, it doesn't have to be the perfect match. But I think with a lot of
times, for all the reasons you mentioned in the intro, we get so stuck in our momentum of staying
inside of just like wake, eat, sleep, repeat, that we forget that there's so much more to life
and that those things can be the very things that will improve our health and make us feel better
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Okay, there are a lot of things in there that I think were super important.
And I just want to reiterate because my brain goes to, okay, what's the one right best thing, right?
And there is this element of start somewhere, test it out, learn, test something else.
There's nothing to be lost in the testing process.
We don't need to have the one right answer right away.
So I'm glad you said that.
I also want to circle back to the start where you talked.
about movement. And I do, that was what jumped into my head where we have a lot of shoulds and
supposed to's. And I will freely admit that I mostly exercise for health and longevity purposes.
There's very little desire involved. I feel good on the other side of doing it, but I never
want to do it. And it is interesting because when you think about movement and exercise, a lot of
we're associating it now with gyms, lifting weights, exercise programs. But when we look at the
healthiest places on the planet or blue zones, these are not places that are known for their
exceptional gyms or like they're lifting weights all the time. They move in a very natural way
and that they're walking everywhere. They're lifting and farming and gardening and they're doing
their movement and it's one of the reasons I love traveling so much. I like
traveling and walking everywhere and, you know,
spending hours meandering or every,
but that's not what my approach to movement at home.
My approach to movement at home is,
oh, I go to this drink training class twice a week
and I run on the treadmill and I lift these weights.
You know, it's really interesting.
I think I have a social prescription for you, Nicole,
based on something you just shared,
which is that I'm hearing what matters to you is traveling,
is seeing new places, is walking everywhere,
is discovering. And I am totally with you, right? That is such a joy to me. But what I've
started to do, there's actually like a bunch of articles about this now, you know, people posting
about their dreamy European summer vacation and then people who are like romanticizing life at
home. And I would say, I would socially prescribe you walks to places near you that you've never
been before, trying to get some of that wonder and allure of travel while sneaking in the walking
bit, the working out bit, because you're absolutely right that, you know, walking is, so many
doctors I spoke to said this. It is like the super drug of all super drugs. There's one thing you could
just universally prescribe. It would be more walking. And so if that's something I'm hearing you say
you love in other settings, why not apply that a bit more locally? And, you know,
I think you'll be surprised at the way that, I mean, for all, I'm so with you, I just came from
a strength training class. I have this notion that, gosh, I need to, like, pack it in and then do all
the other stuff. But I find that, like, calorically, you know, or for whatever reason I'm doing
that, fitness-wise, if I were to spend that time just walking briskly for two hours with a friend
to a part of my neighborhood I've never been in, I'm basically getting the same benefits with a lot more
joy. I wonder too if there is a little bit of a combination opportunity. Like I can still do my two
strength classes a week. Totally. But I think the discovery part of it or the with a friend part of it is a key
mental shift. Because often when I think about walking at home, not when I'm traveling, I think about it
from a how long, how fast, how hard am I going to push myself as opposed to thinking about it the same way
I do when I'm traveling, which is discovery, companionship, seeing new things, no time, no
distance, like we just walk until we get where we're going and then we walk some more if we feel
like it. Just taking a different approach with just that element, I think, is a social prescription
worth trying. Totally with you. You know, it doesn't have to be all or nothing, maybe just
starting with that. But I think we start to apply that logic to a lot of things, a lot of parts of
life that seem unpleasurable and like we're just doing it for the health benefits, is there a
social prescribing switch you can make that will make it more tailored to what matters to you?
So another, you know, direction you could go with movement is friends and I have started to play
pick up volleyball. I used to love playing volleyball. I did this as a kid. I did it in college.
End up just getting one of those nets, starting a group text and saying, hey, you know, who wants to come
play? And the jumping and lifting and aerobic, you know, benefits, I'm getting from.
that again so much more joy than a smelly sweaty gym class and look no shade on gym class that
could be what matters to a lot of your listeners but you know my book really talks about the way
that that shift it used to be so natural for us to move our bodies it used to be easy it used to
be accessible it used to be free and it used to be a welcoming fun environment and the forces of
capitalism and others you know have made it become this undesirable thing
thing and it just totally doesn't have to be that way. Okay, speaking of the forces of capitalism,
what are the benefits or the resistance to social prescriptions because it doesn't cost anything,
right? So like obviously pharmaceutical companies make more money when drugs are prescribed.
I don't know if other countries are ahead of the curve on this or basically what I'm asking is
what are you seeing when it comes to overall?
health care impacts and what's happening in other parts of the world when it comes to social
prescribing. Yeah, great question. And a couple of things there. So this idea that it doesn't
cost anything. It's true there are versions of movement, nature, art, service, and belonging that
you can prescribe yourself that don't cost anything. And I talk about them in part three in my book.
There's a bunch of examples on my website. The examples I talk about in part one where somebody is given a
formal social prescription by a doctor for, you know, in Heather's case, for example,
going to this guided nature club or I talk about a woman who receives a prescription for an
art class. There are some costs there of running those nonprofits. Yep. And in most places where
there are social prescriptions, I mean, I talk about it. It's happening in 32 countries. The vast
majority of them have a national health care system where, you know, it's being covered by the
national health care system, the cost of that the same way that pharmaceutical medication or
therapy would be covered by a national health care system. And the reason why national health care
systems are investing in this is because the data is so promising. Not only are we seeing
better health outcomes from social prescriptions, but we're seeing that it prevents, you know,
future potentially more costly illnesses down the line. It lowers repeat visits for emergency rooms
and hospitalizations. Over time, reduce the costs of care.
So that's all well and good. But like you, you know, being from the United States, I went into this with how the hell is this good. Oh, yeah, I can curse. How the hell is this going to happen here? How the hell is this going to work in the United States where we not only don't have national, like a national health service? I mean, we do for things like Medicare and Medicaid, but by and large, we don't. And also, yeah, the sort of pill prescribing culture in the United States is far stronger here than any other place.
I've been. We spend more on pharmaceuticals than the rest of the world combined. We're the only
country besides New Zealand where pharmaceuticals are allowed to advertise directly to consumers.
And I really go through the whole rigamarole of like, is this the thing that's standing in the way?
And I also come to the conclusion that, you know, I respect all the views of all your listeners,
but I think big pharma, quote unquote, gets made out to be this bad guy. But there are a lot of times in my life
where I've been saved by Big Pharma.
My dad had this pretty rare cancer a couple years ago.
The latest pharmaceutical innovations is what saved him.
I had, you know, some kind of bacterial infection a couple weeks ago.
I go to my pharmacy, I get an antibiotic.
I'm better.
I think the problem, though, and this is where we as a culture need to be realistic,
is that we've relied on Big Pharma to solve a lot of problems
that historically have not been solved by pills
and that other countries do not have the same relationship to.
And it's true that because of all the, you know, advertising and sort of unique conditions of capitalism in the United States, Big Pharma does play a pretty big cultural role in how we view health and health care.
So I think it's going to take us as patients to really resist that and not even to fully resist it, but to have social prescriptions as another option on the menu.
You know, I talk in my book about people who were prescribed antidepressants, which really helped
them as well as a swimming prescription, people who were prescribed anti-anxiety medication
as well as an art prescription.
So I think that's the language we need to lead with.
And here in the United States, for the same reasons why it's picked up abroad, we are seeing
some private insurance companies getting behind this because of its potential to improve
health outcomes and reduce the cost of care. In other words, it's cheaper for an insurance company
to cover 10 weeks of Zumba class than it is for a lifetime of blood pressure medication or
insulin, right? Right. So we are starting to see that movement here. I think it's going to be
slower. It's going to have to happen differently. But there's a great group social prescribing
USA that's, you know, health professionals basically trying to build this movement. I really love how you
handled that question because I do think there is, and I do this too, a quick to blame Big Pharma,
quick to blame doctors, quick to blame ourselves. And the reality is we're all contributing
to where we are and therefore we all have to be part of the solution of where we are. And,
you know, a lot of this too is on us to figure out what works for us. And, you know, a lot of this, too, is on us.
and when we take the medication because we need to
and when we choose to be responsible for our overall health
and longevity, the things that we can control.
So instead of pointing the finger working together
is I think what I'm trying to get at.
Absolutely.
I'm so glad you said that.
And that was, I like very much come to that conclusion in the book.
You know, I was already fires blazing,
trying to make a big farm of the enemy here.
And it's true.
and I talk about this in the book, there have been a lot of missteps. There have been a lot of
ethical breaches, integrity breaches, and we can't ignore those, but we also can't ignore the way
that it has revolutionized health and health care for so many of us and how we ourselves are part of
the problem. I talk about this. I myself am part of the problem. Case and point right here,
I'll show you. I mean, I totally have a caffeine addiction. I drink way, way, way too much coffee,
Whereas I know a few lifestyle changes such as sleeping more, such as, you know, proving my diet would
probably do me better than having three things of cold brew a day. Well, you're preaching to the
choir on that one. I don't really trust people who don't drink coffee. Like, what do you do? Get a normal
amount of sleep. That's just so strange. And yet it's the thing. It's so normal in our culture.
But when I traveled around the world for this book, you know, going to like Singapore, wondering,
where's my cold brew? Other cultures just don't do this. And so I think it starts with us. I think
we don't have to throw it all out or everything overnight. As you could see, I'm still drinking
my cold brew. But I am trying to prescribe myself these five things more so that, you know, I could
sort of be part of the change. Yeah. My brain goes to, yes, I agree, there have been ethical breaches.
there have been missteps and things that have been just downright blatantly wrong.
And I don't say this to excuse that.
But the same is true for ourselves with our own health.
We have done things all of us that we know are not good for us,
that are absolutely ethical breaches to ourselves and to our bodies.
And I think, again, it's just about shared responsibility and shared ownership over the
solution.
Totally.
Okay.
So you so quickly and easily helped me with a social prescription.
For those people listening in, what are some questions that we could be asking ourselves
to find our own social prescription if we don't have a doctor who's doing this with and
for us?
Yeah.
So just to reiterate some of them, I mean, what matters to you is like the umbrella.
But of course, that's super broad.
Like a lot of things matter to me.
So I recommend being really precise with it, asking that.
two more hours in the week question.
Yeah.
Asking, and this is a good one to get your friends and close loved ones involved with.
Like, what makes you light up when you talk about it?
I saw the way that your face lit up when you were talking about how much you love traveling
and walking when you travel.
So try to do that detective work on yourself or bring your loved ones in to help you because
there's something in that.
That's a clue, right?
Another thing I sometimes ask when I give, you know, keynotes and workshops is I have people go through the awe flow glimmers framework.
I don't know.
No, yeah, please.
Yeah.
It's, so awe is this idea that an experience that transcends your understanding of yourself and the world.
So what does that mean in practice?
It's when you go to a concert and you get goosebumps.
It's when you hike to the top of a mountain and you're just amazed by the view, right?
I ask people to reflect on the last time they experienced awe
because it's not the same for everyone and there's a clue in there too.
Aw has been associated with so many health benefits.
Another one is flow, right?
We kind of assume, I mean, I'm case in point.
I have like 50 tabs open right now.
I had to stop this interview for a second because my landlord called me.
Our lives are full of distractions.
But what are the activities that make you forget those distractions
that make you so present in the moment that you could do for seven hours,
not be interrupted. That's your flow. There's a social prescribing clue there. And the last one is
glimmers. You know, there's a lot of talk about triggers. What are these painful, reminders of
painful experiences from your past. But glimmers are the opposite. Glimmers are small moments that
trigger delight and joy. What are your glimmers? I love, I've been to like two dozen different
cities given these workshops and I ask people to reflect on them. And you get the most amazing
answers. And so I think that whether it's, you know, watching puppies play in a park or hiking or
going to a concert, whatever it might be, try to reflect on that and ask yourself, what can I
prescribe myself that's going to bring myself closer to that thing? And you might be thinking, well,
my doctor's never heard of social prescribing. My therapist has never heard of social prescribing.
At socialprescribing.com, there's a list of resources of free or donation-based activities where you
could prescribe yourself that involve elements of these five things.
I love this so much and I don't know, it speaks to inner knowing or just something that is
inside me that even being the extreme introvert that I am is like there are, the way I looked at
it was connection with people, but I think it's because that is part of my social prescription.
That is part of what I'm craving, the connection, the belonging, the service you'd
earlier. So I could talk to you all day. Jules, thank you, thank you for your important work
for writing this book. Again, it's The Connection Cure. And you can find more about social prescribing
on her website, social prescribing.co. Jules, thank you so much. Thank you so much, Nicole.
Such an honor to be here. I loved your questions and I hope you take me up on that social
prescription. I absolutely am and I will tell you all about it. Okay. Great. So friend,
maybe the next time you're feeling off physically, mentally, emotionally, you don't need to
completely overhaul your diet or download a new app or buy another thing that promises to fix
you. Maybe what you need is less fixing and more connecting to what matters to you. Connecting
with yourself, with your people, with your community, with something that lights you up or makes you
laugh or reminds you that you're not in this alone. I'm not suggesting that people don't
take the medication they need or that every illness can be cured with connection, only that
it's possible for many of us that the support we're looking for isn't just found in a bottle or
in a protocol, but maybe in a shared meal or a walk or a creative workshop or a call to somebody
who just gets you. Ask yourself, where is your awe, your flow, and where are the glimmers? Because
what if the cure isn't something we take but something we do? Connection is.
isn't a luxury, it's medicine. And maybe, and by maybe, I mean abs to fucking lootly,
connection is also woman's work.
