GWS Podcast Episode 29
Prescribing Nature: Just Go Outside – with Jennifer Walsh from Walk With Walsh
If you walk into the office of Dr. Robert Zarr, there’s a good chance of walking out with a prescription for a walk — a prescription for nature. He will pull out a prescription pad and scrawl specific instructions for his patient’s walk, just like he would when prescribing a medication. Dr. Zarr is just one of over 150 other doctors who have embraced “Ecotherapy” as a much-needed solution to many of the problems caused by urbanization and our hectic, busy lives.
When you add in a global pandemic that’s forcing even more of us to stay inside for much longer hours, our collective need for a nice walk in nature has never been higher, else we might suffer from “Nature Deficit Disorder.”
It’s not necessarily as simple as just going outside, though, as our guest Jennifer Walsh will teach us in this episode. If you live in an urban environment and nature isn’t literally right outside of your door, you might have to get intentional and make a plan — and you absolutely should!
Jennifer really leaned into this idea in 2019, when she created Walk With Walsh. After decades of pioneering in the wellness industry and as an on-air beauty expert, Jennifer decided to share stories in a new (and more mobile) way, highlighting what makes the difference for healthy leaders in the process.
And after the COVID-19 pandemic, Jennifer’s movement became more important than ever. She became the eyes and ears of a shutdown New York City, and through it all — the ambulances, the pots clanging for healthcare workers every evening, the temporary hospital tents put up in her beloved Central Park — she just kept walking. As her followers were enamored with the melancholia of an empty NYC on display on her timeline, she also sprinkled in some facts about nature’s immunity-boosting abilities and historical data about patients who had outdoor treatment rooms during the 1918 Spanish Flu.
In this episode, Jennifer expands on the universal benefits of both walking with nature and integrating nature into your indoor spaces — plus why it’s safer to take a few regular socially distanced walks during this pandemic than bunker up inside for the duration.
Get ready to lace up your walking shoes!
To learn more, visit Walk with Walsh at www.walkwithwalsh.com
Resources:
- www.walkwithwalsh.com
- Instagram: @thejenniferwalsh
- YouTube: Walk With Walsh
- Global Wellness Summit 2020
- GWI’s 2020 Research In Progress