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Nature, Our Medicine: How the natural world sustains us

Find out how connecting to nature can boost your health and heal our planet

Join mother, nature lover and family physician, Dr Dimity Williams as she explores the most important relationship we have - our connection with nature.

The natural world provides our life support system- giving us clean air and water, a stable climate and healthy soils to grow our food. Earth's biological richness, or biodiversity, offers us precious medicines and beautiful places for psychological and spiritual rejuvenation. Yet modern life has seen screen spaces replace green places as we have moved inside and into virtual worlds. This change has not been good for us, or our planet. Lifestyle-related diseases and mental health problems are overwhelming health systems everywhere. Meanwhile, outside, the natural world is falling apart with climate change and mass extinctions of plants and animals.

The solution is simple: we need to reconnect to nature

Incorporating science, history, stories, and alternative cultural knowledge, Dimity makes the case that caring for nature is essential for our wellbeing. And, for all life on Earth.Uncover the links between planetary and human healthDiscover the benefits of time in nature for your body, mind and heart Learn how to go forest bathing and create your own nature prescriptionFind out why nature play is so important for childrenLook to the philosophies of First Nations peopleRecognise your inherent biophilia, or love of the living worldSee how we can heal ourselves and our planet at the same timePraise for Nature, Our Medicine

"Nature, Our Medicine is a live-changing proposition. It takes us through the rapids of our high stress world to the calming balm of nature."

Bob Brown

"A comprehensively researched, powerful book that will leave no reader in doubt of the inextricable link between our health, our wellbeing and humanity's life support system - Earth."

Dr Eugenie Kayak, Enterprise Professor in Sustainable Healthcare

"No surprise that Dr Dimity Williams brings her nurturing nature as a compassionate GP, a wonderful mother and nature lover to this honest, heartfelt and healing book. Through her scientific expertise, life experience and common sense, she doesn't sugar coat the challenges but also leaves the reader hopeful with practical solutions from making space in our lives for nature, inspiring the next generation, and even writing nature prescriptions for her patients."

Dr Grant Blashki, Lead Clinical Adviser, Beyond Blue, Associate Professor in Global Health University of Melbourne

About the author

Dr Dimity Williams has worked as a family physician for 25 years and in environmental advocacy with multiple organisations. Dimity is an alumna of the Centre for Sustainability Leadership and founder of Doctors for the Environment Australia's Biodiversity Special Interest Group. Especially interested in how time in nature supports children's wellbeing, she is a co-founder of the Kids In Nature Network. Dimity envisions a world where all children have every opportunity to experience, love and look after nature.