Good morning! For this week’s newsletter, we’d like to hand the mic over to a special guest, our friend Jules Hotz.
The importance of the “with” in Walk with a Doc
“See that lady in the blue jacket? That’s Phyllis— one of three dozen people I met on a sunny Saturday last October in Columbus, Ohio, where strangers-turned-friends have been walking with their doc, David Sabgir, for nearly twenty years.
David, as we know, has since spread the Walk with a Doc concept to over 500 chapters around the world. And as he’s been hard at work spreading WWAD, others have been mobilizing around a similar concept called social prescribing — a practice through which doctors, therapists and other health workers prescribe their patients community resources and activities, like art classes and cycling groups, the same way they prescribe pills and therapies.
I’ve just written a new book The Connection Cure, which digs into the science, the stories, and the spread of social prescribing. I’ve seen its benefits firsthand for a wide range of ailments, in nearly 30 countries. Among others, in the book, you’ll meet Khuyen — an aspiring novelist with PTSD whose prescribed art workshop helps her tell a new story around her trauma, and cope. You’ll meet Akeela –a loving empty nester mom with chronic back pain whose prescribed volunteer gig helps her reconnect to a cause she found meaningful, and (physically) feel better, too. And you’ll meet Amanda — a passionate researcher whose divorce and death of her mother threw her into deep depression and loneliness, until a prescribed sea swimming group helped her reconnect with her community and give her “a reason to wake up in the morning,” as she says.
These book characters personify something the Walk with a Doc community has known all along. Sure, walking is healthy (one of the largest studies tells us that just 11 minutes of walking per day can lower our risk of premature death by 25 percent, and protect us against heart disease and all kinds of cancers). But walking with our community — and our doc — is even healthier. Especially on this #LonelinessAwarenessWeek — a holiday that reminds us of the health harms of loneliness and aims to spark community action — we remember how it’s the accountability and friendship of a community who walks with us that matters just as much as the actual walking.
That’s what I recognized on the day of my walk in Columbus. Among others, I met a woman who’d been looking on MeetUp.com for group activities to help find friendships and found, through WWAD, a reliable “5K every Saturday” buddy. I met a pair of retired neighbors who needed a new routine when their kids left home and found just that in WWAD. I met a beloved walker whose husband, another walker, passed away in 2020; beyond just the walks, she found healing — drop-off meals and home visits and a dedicated bench — in the gestures of friendship from her fellow walkers. And as for Phyllis, in the blue jacket? Well, on the day I walked with her, we celebrated her 96th birthday.
The Connection Cure may be a new book celebrating a new practice. But Walk with a Doc, which Chapter 10 mentions, demonstrates the way doctors, leaders, and walkers like you have been spreading its magic all along.”
– Jules
