The Natural Health Service: How Nature Can Mend Your Mind (Hardback)
Isabel Hardman (author)Published: 23/04/2020

In the bold and insightful The Natural Health Service, Isabel Hardman advocates the enormous benefits of living life in the great outdoors and reveals how fresh air and activity has proved the perfect tonic for her battles with depression and anxiety.
In 2016, Isabel Hardman's mind, in her own words, 'stopped working' as she fell prey to severe depression and anxiety. She took time off on long-term sick leave and despite several relapses has returned to work in much better health. She has since become one of the country's most prominent public voices on mental health issues.
She credits her recovery to her passion for exercise, nature and the great outdoors - from horse-riding and botany to cold-water swimming and running. In The Natural Health Service, she will draw on her own personal experience, interviews with mental illness sufferers and psychologists, and the latest research to examine what role wildlife and fresh air can play in helping anyone cope with mental illness.
Straight-talking, thoroughly-researched, and compassionate, this important and often funny book will be fascinate anyone touched by a mental health condition, whether themselves or through the experiences of a loved-one.
Publisher: Atlantic Books
ISBN: 9781786495907
Number of pages: 336
Weight: 567 g
Dimensions: 210 x 148 x 24 mm
Edition: Main
MEDIA REVIEWS
An impassioned case for integrating nature and outdoor exercise into mental health treatment. * New Statesman *
A wise, compassionate, timely and beautifully written book. Isabel is formidably brave and open about her health struggles. * Andrew Marr *
A manifesto that, right now, feels sorely needed. * The Times *
A remarkable, fact-packed, warm and important book. If you're after an honest, no-bullshit, un-woowoo blueprint
about how to improve your mental health through engaging with the natural world, this is for you.
Robustly argued... Elation comes in many forms: an unexpected orchid in a Glasgow car park, a shy kingfisher by the Thames, and Penny Black, a headstrong pony in Wimbledon. * Kate Kellaway, Observer *
A vigorous case for nature as the great healer we have overlooked. * Financial Times *
Hardman is a precise, lucid writer, never afraid to offer well-argued opinion but always careful to delineate it from factual reporting... The Natural Health Service is rich in interesting and unusual details. * The Critic *
A compelling and passionately argued case that healthy bodies and minds need nature. * The Lancet *
A really uplifting book. Amid the vivid depictions of depression and PTSD there is a joy in these pages as Isabel explains what the natural world has given to her, and can give to all of us. Hardman shows there is so much we can do to help ourselves just by looking at the world around us, exploring and enjoying its beauty, variety, life-giving, life-enhancing, mood-changing power. * Alastair Campbell *
Brave and thoroughly researched. * Bella Mackie, author of Jog On *
Extraordinary. I wish everyone with a mental illness, and all those supporting them, would read this book. I believe it could help to revolutionise the way we think about, and even treat, mental health issues. * Jonny Benjamin MBE *
Absorbing and life-affirming... Isabel's journey of discovery through her own mental illness contains lessons for us all. Simply a must read. * Rachel Cullen, author of Running For My Life *
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“A nice intro to nature and wellbeing”
Thanks to Atlantic Books and Netgalley for a copy of this.
The Natural Health Service is a book about how we can all use a bit of nature to improve our wellbeing.
I enjoyed the overall message of the book, and...
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“How nature can improve mental health”
In advocating the 'Natural Health Service', Journalist Hardman offers a variety of ways in which we can benefit from the great outdoors.
Written from the author's own experience of mental ill health,...
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“Our beautiful, wonderful world”
At 05:30 this morning, I dashed down my front steps and briskly walked up the road to my car, my thoughts consumed by whether or not I’d find a parking space, if the tubes would be running infrequently because it was... More
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