We're not saying that. Throw out all the pills, throw out all the

surgeries, throw out all the therapies. We need all of that, too. This

is about putting another option onto the healthcare menu.

And I think it's this type of thing that the more we normalize it,

the more we talk about health as something that is the product of our

connections, the more we can accept that,

yeah, social prescriptions make a lot of sense.

Welcome to Open Heart Surgery with Boots, where we explore

the journey of heart health through the eyes of those who live it every

day. I'm your host, Boots Knighton, and in season

five, we're focusing on what it truly means to

thrive. We'll dive into cutting edge medical advances,

share powerful stories from both sides of the stethoscope,

and learn how to be better advocates for our own health.

From candid conversations with cardiac patients to

insights from dedicated healthcare professionals, each

episode brings you closer to understanding the complex world

of heart health. Whether you're navigating your own cardiac

journey or supporting someone who is, you're in the right

place. So let's get to today's story.

I thank you for being here, for

supporting this podcast, for showing up in the

world and shining your bright light. It is not

easy being a heart patient, and if you are new to me

and this podcast, I welcome you with open heart and

open arms. I started this podcast

for all heart patients worldwide and as of this

recording, I have now been downloaded in 65

countries, which is just really astonishing to

me and so thank you. I love you,

I see you, I hear you. I am here for you.

Please send an email

bootsheheartchamberpodcast.com that was the

original name of this podcast and I want to hear from you. If

you're just now finding this podcast and tell me what you need to hear

more of what you need support with and then find us on

Patreon at Open Heart Surgery with Boots.

And that is a great way to support the show and

get involved with the community that I'm slowly getting going

as I still continue to navigate my own heart.

Hello, welcome to Open Heart Surgery with Boots.

Oh, man, I tell you, I. I have been so

fired up about 2025 for a while because

I knew who I had on the roster. I

have taken so much care this year to bring

you a curated list of guests

who are thriving after open heart

surgery or who are contributing to the world of open heart

surgery or who are helping us think

outside the box of the medical field.

I have said in past episodes that we need,

we need more than like a cardiologist and a general

practitioner on our team. We need a nutritionist. We

need an ob gyn if you're a female.

We need a pelvic floor specialist. I'm bringing the whole

month of February, I'm bringing, bringing you pelvic

floor health because our pelvic floor is so

impacted by heart surgery. But today

I'm going to be doing this. Throughout the year, I'm going to be highlighting various

authors who have written books about health

care in various ways. And today is the first

author I'm bringing to you for 2025.

Julia Hotz, welcome. Has written

the most impactful book I have read in a

while and I'm going to show it to you because I

am hoping to start putting some more videos up of whole podcast.

So this is called the Connection Cure. I love

the title of the book. I love the COVID And

this book, the, the subheading is a

better way of thinking about medicine and healing. And

that's, that's what really touched me because the whole

impetus of this podcast has been there's gotta be

more than just my surgeon telling me to go live my

best life to clear my sternotomy. It's healed.

Now just go out into the world and go on about your life. I found

that then I just was kind of like lost in the

shuffle. And I've had to figure out how to thrive. Not just

survive, but thrive post open heart surgery. Lo and

behold, this past summer, this book comes

across my feed and thank goodness it did. And I've been

implementing it into my life and I just went straight to the

source and like cold emailed Julia and was like,

will you please come on my podcast? And then maybe we could be friends.

So here we are today. So, Julia, thank

you. And Julia, I just want you to brag on

yourself who you are. You are just contributing so much of

your writing to the world. So I had like a writing crush on you. Tell

us about who you are and set the scene before we dive into your really

important book. Well, back at you,

boots. And if I can just brag about you for a second, as I'm

sure all your listeners know, you know, this book that I've written and everything

I stand for is all about the power of connecting with

others. It's about the power of connecting with our outdoor

environments, our artistic lives, our inner self.

And every listener of this podcast must know that you embody that

message so well. So the honor is really mine.

The way that you've Touched so many people with your story,

and I think we are sort of kindred soul sisters in a way. I

think we're both really interested in what

is it that we're all here for. Right. And in those tough moments,

whether it's heart surgery or any sort of medical

challenge, what can that teach us about ourselves in the

world and what really matters? So it is such an

honor to be here and to talk about my book, the Connection Cure, which,

thank you for reading and being a super fan of it means

so much to me. Thank you. And, you know, I'm inspiring

author myself, and I know what it takes to birth a book and get it

into the world. And you had to

really travel the entire world, it

seems. And I. I'm really

amazed at what you. The qualitative and

quantitative data you gathered. I mean, you put so much heart and

soul into this book, and I'm sold on it. And it' it really is an

amazing read. And, you know, it's the prescriptive power of

movement, nature, art, service and belonging. And

I feel like we've lost that along the way. And I just

reflect back to my experience in the hospital,

and, you know, they would come in, they would barely touch me. They

would scan my wrist, the wristband, and then just prescribe

pills. And it was not. The diet wasn't very well thought out, the

nutrition. And then, you know, it just seemed so

fragmented, diluted, you

know, just lacking soul.

And our experience as heart patients, you know,

it is our heart is our soul. That's where our soul is.

And. And to have such an impactful surgery and

then not to be prescribed any of this, and then just to be

in this, like, silo, it doesn't set us up for

wholehearted living. You know, pardon the pun, but it's true.

And so, you know, your book is helping me re,

like, rekindle my wholehearted living. Oh,

wow. Well, so much to unpack there. Thank you for

that. I think you always had it in you, but I think

you must know better than anyone and your listeners know better than

anyone that, yeah, the process of

medicine today really makes us question a lot

about how did medicine come to be this way, you know, because it struck

me, as you were speaking 2500 years ago, the

earliest philosophers and scientists and

thinkers, no matter where they were in the world, whether it was

ancient Greece or Nepal or the Middle east, they sort of

converged on this idea that medicine

has an art and a science to. To it. Right. It's not as

simple as I treat the diagnosis you as a person are

more than the sum of your parts. The way

that you feel, the emotions you have,

the aspirations you have, the experiences you have, that is all

part of medicine, too. You know, it's even in our Hippocratic

oath that people entering the US Medical profession take

that our jobs are not just to treat with the

surgeon's knife, but the surgeon's heart as well.

So it's really only within recent

years that medicine has become this, as you say,

fragmented and cold. And listen, I have a lot

of empathy for people working in the profession. I'm sure you do, too.

It's not easy to be a cardiologist or work in

any kind of health care today. The pressures on them are tremendous, and

it is still a tremendous sacrifice to even enter medicine in the

first place. But the problem is that the system

right now doesn't set up those people for

success. It sets us up to be treated. A term

that kept coming up in the book is almost like a factory, right?

Where medicine becomes this sort of factory approach. We're

repairing machines rather than healing people.

And you know the other word I'm thinking of? Sterilized.

Yeah, sterilized. What was the word I was searching for

earlier? But, yeah, and it. And. And that factory

analogy does come out in patient care. Like I was just saying, they

come in, they scan your wristband, you know, then they enter into the

computer and it's. They're. They're facing away from you and

like, doing computer stuff, and they might look at you for a couple

of minutes. That's been my experience.

And so my heart surgery was four years ago. As of

tomorrow, during. We're recording this on January 14,

2025. And that, you know, that was in the heart of

COVID And then just last

year, I broke my leg and then had some

complications and was in the hospital. And I

remember all the nurses saying how fried

they were, burned out, exhausted, how so

much had changed that they didn't enjoy their job.

And it. It was really disheartening as a patient to hear

that. I mean, I appreciated that they were being honest, but I.

I'm worried. I'm worried for us as a society. I'm worried

about our. Our healthcare providers. And yes, I have an amazing

amount of respect for them that they continue to try to serve

patients. But, yeah, there's a real disconnect. And I just keep

thinking about how do we have to take it into our. We have to take

our health into our own hands and be our own CEOs,

and just not Rely on the system.

Well, you are certainly not alone. You know, as you said, as we're

recording this there in the wake of not only post

Covid, but also, frankly, like an

administration where there's been some skepticism about health

care, which, you know, for the record, is that

we. We could say a lot about that, but we won't go there. All this

to say that I think what you have felt and what you're sensing is really

valid, and it really kind of makes sense how it happened. Like, you think

about how any sort of

profession develops. Right, let's take

medicine. And there's this sort of

consensus that in medicine, we want the best

medicine available. We want the best tools, we want the best technology.

We want to be able to be more precise with

understanding disease and symptoms and how to treat it.

It's almost like we're getting more and more narrow with our focus.

And I think there's a lot of beauty to that. I say in the book,

but of course, you know, modern medicine is wonderful for

many reasons. I think at the same time, though, as we've

become more narrow and more focused and more specialized,

we've sort of, as I say in the book, thrown the baby out with the

bathwater. We're losing the fact that actually

so much of our health, up to 80% of it, is determined

by our environment. And that could be true in a hospital, in a clinical

setting, as well as outside of it. And it almost

feels, I say that 80% statistic because sometimes when I'm

talking about this stuff among people in the profession, it almost

feels soft, like it feels almost

unscientific to say that we need the warmth

of connection and purpose, a reason to wake up in

the morning. But there is a tremendous amount of data

supporting this, all kinds of data showing that how

connected we are to our environments and to one another

is a predictor of our longevity, our mood, how we do in

life. So I think we're at this breaking point now with

everything you've described. And there is more of a consensus now that,

okay, we need to go back to

basics, we need to restore the art in medicine. And one way this

is happening is through this thing called social prescribing.

Right. Which is just so beautiful. And so I want to

get into that. How did you originally

learn about this? Because I only know this because of your beautiful

book. Yeah, well, thank you. I

also hadn't heard of it, and nobody I'd known in

the United States have heard of it. But my job is, you know, I'm A

journalist. And specifically we call ourselves solutions

journalists, people who sort of take a look at the widely felt problems

around us and investigate what other places have done a good job

of addressing this problem. And before I was a journalist, I was

actually a grad school student. And the year I was there in England,

it was 2017, 2018, and

the UK had just become the first nation in the world to

establish a Minister of Loneliness, like a government

appointed position for loneliness. And I

thought, what the heck is this? Are we really at

a point where we need to invest government funding into addressing

loneliness? And sure enough, that became my

research topic. And I found out, yes, we absolutely do. Because in the

UK there's data on this and I'm sure it's similarly

true in the US up to 1 in 5 doctor's

appointments are made for purely social reasons.

So much data suggests that loneliness is a predictor of

anxiety, depression, chronic pain, stress, premature

mortality, cancer, you name it. Something is telling

us that the way we are living is not

conducive to our health. And so I learned about this because I was

investigating, okay, what is this minister going to do? What are some

solutions? And it was through that that I first

came across this concept of social prescribing, which just to define it

for everyone, is a pro practice through which doctors,

therapists, teams of health workers will literally

prescribe non medical,

local community activities and resources the

same way they prescribe pills and therapies. So in my book

that means, you know, cycling courses, it means art

classes, it means these nature and hiking

excursions, volunteer gigs, even just phone

call conversations for people who can't leave their homes. And it

comes from this kind of understanding that, look, our health is

more than just the sum of our molecules and

chemical reactions. It also is very much dependent

on our connections. And

so, yeah, I first learned about it that way and I learned that this wasn't

just a good idea, but there was actually some data suggesting

that when someone is given a social

prescription, it not only helps address whatever

the underlying medical condition is, whether that's, you

know, type 2 diabetes, depression, chronic pain,

it also reduces pressure on the healthcare

system. Because all those people, and especially in a

place like the uk, where healthcare is nationalized, taxpayers

pay for it, there's not enough care, you know, to go around for everybody

who needs it, when they need it, they found that social prescribing

actually reduces the number of emergency room visits, primary

care visits, spending overtime. Doctors are really

a fan of it. So there was just a lot of data suggesting

that, yeah, this is a timely idea for everything we're

seeing in health and healthcare

and. All right. I mean, all of

that, please. But I'm just thinking. I'm just thinking from the

patient's perspective and how much I

hate going to the er. I've been way

more than is a normal amount. Not there really should be

ever a normal amount, but I'm not sure why it said that.

But I'm just thinking about. Or make up that there's just less

suffering that way. I'm always thinking about

people's emotions and mental health through all of

this, and the amount of needless

suffering that can be

lessened through social prescribing. Right. That's where my heart goes when I'm

hearing you say all that. Absolutely,

absolutely. And, you know, I think that

maybe there's this thought, I know a lot of people, and I'm one of them.

When I first heard about social prescribing, they thought, really, why do we need

a doctor to tell us to go join a cycling course? Or,

you know, can this really help with things that I've

understood to be purely biomedical conditions like

chronic pain? I think that impulse is understandable

because every experience we've probably had in healthcare throughout our lives

has confirmed that. You know, most of us here in the United States, our

early experiences with the healthcare system is like, we have strep

throat or an ear infection, and we go to the doctor, they run

a test, they tell us, yes, you have this infection, here's an antibiotic, boom.

But this idea of actually saying, hey, there are

some pains for which you have that are very real, they're not

in your head, they are causing some sort of chemical reaction your

body. But maybe they're not best addressed by,

you know, some kind of medication or even clinical

therapy. Maybe they're best addressed or

partially addressed right. By what's in your community.

Because, look, we're not saying that throw out all the pills, throw out

all the surgeries, throw out all the therapies. We need all of that, too. This

is about putting another option onto the healthcare menu.

And I think it's this type of thing that the more we normalize it,

the more we talk about health as something that is the product of our

connections, the more we can accept that, yeah,

social prescriptions make a lot of sense. You know, what I'm hearing

is empowerment. Yeah. Yeah,

that's exactly it. That was a big theme that

came up in all the different patients I interviewed who received social

prescriptions. Like, they felt really hopeless. And, you

know, Everyone who's ever been in a situation

where they needed medical care, they're very vulnerable.

How awful is it when you're taking this

underlying, you know, vulnerability, fear,

discomfort and you're trying all these different medications

and therapies or maybe nothing has been tried

and you're feeling like, wait a minute, I

don't have any power here. If the doctor doesn't know what's wrong or if these

things aren't helping me, how am I ever gonna get better? And

I think what social prescribing does is, you know,

the, the catchphrase in this is flipping

from what's the matter with you? To what matters to you.

So in that sense it is so empowering. Let us prescribe

you what matters to you

and let's see how, if you are given

the resources and support

and accountability to engage in that

way. Let's see how you feel. And spoiler alert,

they all got better to some level. Yeah, yeah.

And, and we can't rely on this as the one magic pill

or actual pills to be the magic pill. Right. It's.

I have learned through my own journey that it's a multitude of

things coming together to, to make, to help me

heal and thrive. Another thing, let's see, you

mentioned the, the healthcare providers I think were like, or people were like. Why

should we rely on people to social prescribe?

Well, think of it this way. It's hard to keep track of

things when I, I know for myself when I'm in, when I was in

fear of my heart, it was hard to remember to take care of

myself. And it is completely okay to, to

rely and go to a doctor, coach,

therapist to help you keep remembering to, you

know, wake up, chop wood, carry water. Right. Like all

the simple things, there's no, there's no shame in like

someone saying, you know, try painting today. Here's why. It

will do wonders for your nervous system which will then

positively impact your heart. So I'm, I

understand the hesitancy there,

but we just. There. It's no different than having a post it note to

remind you to, to do the things right.

So true. Definitely. I mean there's a lot that

happens when you elevate from just, you know, I should probably do

this thing to. No, I have a social prescription to do this

thing. Like number one, you're sort of getting that authority from the

medical system. You're understanding that this is like a science

backed medicine. It's not just a nice to have.

You're also getting the accountability of that medical professional who,

you know, after I say, okay, boots, I'm prescribing you a 10 week sea

swimming course. I'm checking in at the end of that 10 weeks, and I'm checking

in maybe even during that 10 weeks and seeing how it's going. But

where I think the most powerful accountability comes from

is the other people in the group as well. And also

the sheer enjoyment of the thing. Like what I know

about you. You know, you were a ski instructor, you've

taught, you're a book lover. Everyone could tell from your

backgrounds you also have that intrinsic motivation to

be doing what matters to you. But then how great is that when

then you're meeting somebody who also loves to ski or

read or engage with nature. And in those

moments, your engagements in this thing that's prescribed through

healthcare are not about what was the matter with you, what

got you sick, but are about what matters to you. And

just that environment and positive mindset

really can drive a change in your health.

Well said. And speaking of mindset, if I could plug a

previous episode because it just pairs so well here,

although I'm finding it's going to pair with every episode, is my

interview with Dr. Lara Suarez

Pardo. She's the cardiac psychiatrist at the

Mayo Clinic. And I aired her interview in December of

2024. I got to meet her in person at the Mayo when I was

there for the Women Heart Conference this past fall. And

she talks about making those small changes and like how

hard it can be. And she addresses why it's hard

and then how to move through the hard. And you know,

it's, it's okay to ask for help. It's okay that it's hard. It's

okay that I stumble. And the beautiful thing

about the social prescribing is that it's mostly free

or at least low cost. Right. So, yeah,

you travel far if you don't want to. And yeah, so it

just, it seems more attainable to me.

Absolutely, A hundred percent. And, you know,

I mean, we could talk about the challenges with social prescribing. And I'll say

that this is not always true, but in many, many cases,

not only is it free, but it's covered by your insurance or it's

covered by a grant or, you know, it's very

rarely a cost to the user. And the other

thing is that especially if we talk about older populations

where transportation might not be that easy, in many

cases, transportation is arranged like one of the chapters in

the book goes into this farm

for people with dementia. And this

woman I Interviewed such a firecracker, so funny, so full of

life. Has pretty significant

dementia, which means she's not able to drive, which also

means she's stuck at home all day with her husband, who, to

use her words, says she talks too much. So one of the

best things about this social prescription for her to go to

this care farm is that not only

the activities on the farm, engaging with other people, but

she actually is picked up in a van and driven to and from

there. That's not only helping her, that's also helping her

husband have a little relief from the caregiving elements of this

too. So, yeah, in an ideal world, a social prescription,

it is going way beyond that recommendation

of, hey, you should exercise more or garden more. It's giving you

all the tools you need to actually follow through with that. Right. And

it obviously impacts the whole community. Right. It like

talking about the husband and probably helps the farm. And

yeah. So we, in 2025, in

the, in the time of where I feel like we're maybe the most

disconnected we've ever been, you know, we have got to keep

reminding ourselves and each other that we actually really are meant to be

connected and that we aren't meant to be in these silos in our houses

behind a screen all the time. So

our, I want to jump to, let's actually

talk about some examples. And the ones I want to talk about

are, and these are the ones that myself as a heart

patient and other heart patients I've had the privilege of meeting,

all have struggled with. I'm going to give the overview and then we'll break down

each one real quickly. Loss of connection, dealing with

an upsetting event, ruminating on a said event,

and then just loneliness. You detailed

in the book, those are four separate issues that

you can, you can prescribe a social

subscription for. So can you, can we break each of those

down? We definitely can. And you

know, I, I, I think it goes without saying, like, all these are

very related. And just as, you know,

feeling a loss of connection can lead you to

ruminate and can lead to more

upsetting events or you interpreting more events as upsetting. The

opposite is also true that when you're in an environment where you

feel connected, you feel engaged, you

feel like you're that setting event, it didn't unhappen,

but it's not in the top of your mind. All of these related

benefits come too. This is why in our healthcare

system, people are very rarely just lonely or

just depressed or just, you know,

have a congenital heart effect. All of these Things are related. When

one part doesn't work, many parts don't work. And just as when

one part is healed, many parts can heal.

So in the book, I break down the social

prescriptions. Social prescriptions in terms of

the five core ingredients that were really common around

the world. These are movement, nature, art,

service and belonging. And even though all of them

can sort of be used interchangeably, I tried to break it down

in terms of what does the science suggest is most

effective for what kinds of ailments. So let's

start with ruminating, which, you know, I talk about really in the

first two chapters of the book when I'm talking about the power of movement

and nature. Now, I know you're a nature lover, too, and so I'm sure this

isn't surprising to you, but one unique

property of nature is that it has

the ability to capture our attention. We're

something called soft fascination. We're fascinated by nature

without taxing it. And I'm sure

you felt this when you're skiing, when you're hiking, when you're

cycling, if you're in an environment

that is beautiful because, you know nature is beautiful.

The problems with which you had before you entered

that environment, something you might be ruminating on, an upsetting event

that might have happened to you, that goes in the back

burner. And how do we know this? We know that nature

and movement are effective for treating symptoms of depression, which

is very closely related to rumination

as well as anxiety, both related to rumination

and dealing with an upsetting event. And so

my book talks about, for example, this woman

Amanda, who had a lot of upsetting

events happen in her life. Her mother passed away, she found

out her husband was having an affair. She lost her job,

she had to move to a place where she knew nobody. And this was all

during the pandemic itself. So the big five, as she calls it,

five upsetting events. And during that time,

how she describes this is she

couldn't stop replaying the events of the

affair, the events of losing her job, those

last moments with her mother, all of these painful things.

So she was ruminating, and she describes her state as

feeling like her mind was enclosed in a helmet and she

couldn't get out of this pain, deep, dark place. Now, when

Amanda reports these symptoms to her mental health nurse, you know,

she's diagnosed with major depression. And she's put on an

antidepressant, the maximum dose. And I'll say for

Amanda, she would say that that really helped her with some of

the symptoms. But there was still, through all of this, that

loss of connection, think about it, she'd had all of these

connections in her old home, her husband, her mother, to none of them.

That was something that an antidepressant couldn't solve

for. So she gets prescribed a 10 week

sea swimming course. And I talk about this in the book. But sea

swimming is particularly interesting because, you know, you're moving your body,

you're doing something physically challenging, and evidence suggests

that movement is related to production of serotonin and

endorphins and all these feel good chemicals.

But you're also in this beautiful natural

environment where your attention is being restored.

There's a lot of science in the book about how that works as well.

So what happens for Amanda? She goes on the sea swimming course,

which, by the way, cold water, winter time. Her

and like 10 other women are doing this and they're learning safety, but they're

also literally going in this freezing cold water. She

first of all makes these wonderful friends who she now meets up with

not only to swim, but also to have tea with. She has

this hobby that she loves. The way she describes it, she feels like she wants

to wake out of bed in the morning. She has much more energy throughout her

day and she feels like, in her own words, her

life became bright again. And after all

of that, Amanda was able to go from the maximum dose of the

antidepressant to the minimum dose because. Because what happened to

her? She felt connected again, she felt less lonely.

She, yes, still had these upsetting events, but

she had an outlet to deal with them. She had an outlet to

deal with the rumination, whereas before she

didn't. So that's just one example that really

combines those four. But, you know, I would say

also art. There's a lot of data suggesting that art

is real, really powerful for rumination in particular,

because much like nature, it takes our attention to

something else. It helps us sort of zoom out, put

our upsetting event into perspective and feel

like, you know, maybe we're not the only ones who went through

this. So that's, that's a little insight into

those four. But I could totally understand how for a

heart pitch patient, it is all four of those things at once.

And so it's important to think about all of those

medicines together. Right. And thank you for that. And I love

that story in the book. And even though I've never met Amanda, I

was, I was right there with her and you set the scene so well. I

can picture her putting her wetsuit on and I'm so happy for

her that she found that that road.

That there was a practitioner who was willing to. To think a little outside

the box of norm, of the normal medical system

and help her. We all deserve to thrive and

we all. It is make. I think it was like make

caring cool again or it's cool to care. And the

COVID days. And you know, even though

Amanda lives far from me, I still want her to be happy.

Right? We. We're all energetically connected and

I don't think we talk about that enough. So I'm so happy to

hear that she. That her suffering has. Cause it sounds like she really

was suffering, that it has lessened a lot. You

can't. You can't take back any of those events. But

yet there is. There is a way to stop ruminating.

And you know, I. Because of your book, I've started

doing more intentional art. And what was really interesting

is when I was waiting for heart surgery, I had

to wait like five months because of COVID It was so

hard. And a colleague gave me a set of

watercolors and I had never done watercolor.

And I. That's all I could do. And I

look back at my art then with such fondness

because it reminded me that I was loved. It reminded me that I could still

do something. And I was ruminating because it

gave me. I want to talk about that because I think it's important for

me. What I've learned through my therapeutic journey with my amazing

therapist is sometimes rumination.

It gives you this sense of control.

So I over researched my different defects. I

over researched where to go. I mean, I really like

beat the dead horse. And I figured if I

learned as much as I could, I could save my life. And if I thought

enough about it, I would save my life. And I can tell

you all that did was hurt my actual heart because

it raised my cortisol, which we know is not healthy.

And so that art, that watercolor, as

rudimentary as it was, because, like, it's not my first strength. It did

get my head out of it. And now I'm doing it

more for sense of connection with others. And

I am so amused at what I'm

choosing to paint. I'm like just choosing like little animals and

it is cracking me up and I cannot stop

laughing. And then it makes my friends laugh. And then I'm giving all my

very rudimentary animals to other friends for them to put on their

refrigerators. So like, I've been painting like hippos and

like, anyway, so here I am like 46 years old. Right.

And I love it. Your inner

child. Yeah. And I cannot believe I bring all this up because I

can't believe how much better I feel. And, you know, and I'm like, in

all sense of the word, I'm doing pretty well. Right. But I. Yeah, there

was room for improvement. Oh, my gosh.

Wow. Absolutely. You know, so much to unpack there.

But first of all, just so glad you found that your

inner child is telling you something. And you know what's so great

about all of these things, whether it's your water coloring or Amanda C.

Swimming lessons, is that unlike medication, which, you know,

you take for a certain point and then you stop, this is something you can

rely on for the rest of your life because, you know, guess

what? There probably are going to be more upsetting events that

happen in your lifetime, and there's no way we can control for that.

And everything you did there know,

reacting to your

diagnosis and wanting to know everything you could know and

wanting to have the best possible care you could have, and feeling

stressed, having your cortisol raised at the prospect

that maybe there's something you could be doing better or more

controlling. That is so. I don't.

I hate the word normal, but that is so in our human nature. I

mean, we evolved to want

to protect our lives, extend our lives.

And that was a big insight for me. Maybe this is like common

sense to everyone else, but I had always sort of thought

about stress, depression, anxiety, these

chronic pain, even these sorts of things as, like,

random and very much driven by chemicals. And

it's true that these conditions can change our chemical

makeup. But actually, to be anxious or to be

depressed or to ruminate or to feel stress

is a reaction to an environment that is

threatening you. So you did everything you evolved

to do there. And what is, you know, so wonderful about these

social prescriptions and you rediscovering watercoloring

is. I. I mean, I'm sort of like tongue in cheek. But I think there

is something here about reconnecting to your inner child. Because

when we were kids, like, we kind of just accepted that we didn't

really have a lot of control. We sort of just did what felt right to

us. Yeah, we asked questions. But I think as we get older

and we have the Internet and WebMD and, you

know, an abundance of resources available,

there's this temptation to sort of like, outsmart

our stress and fear, and there's less

of a willingness to accept that there are just some things we can't control.

Control. So the Fact that you boots

were able to recognize the wisdom of your

inner child there. That water coloring is something that feels

good to you. It's something that continues to feel good to you in both stressful

times and non stressful times, has been a source of connection for your

community. That is so beautiful. And that is what I hope everyone

listening can take away. Yeah. Thank you. And

I learned through my therapist that, you know, that's parts work. We all have

parts to sell, you know, so inner child,

firefighter, the manager, and yeah, my

firefighter was running around with my hair on fire. And if you watch

the. Oh, shoot. What's the movie? It's parts one

and part two now. Where it's inside out. Thank you.

Yes. And inside out too. Oh, I just love that movie.

And it, it is, it is the best. It is the best example

of parts work. And it's also just adorable. And

anxiety, that moment where I don't want to spoil it for

others, but there's just a part of the movie where anxiety takes

over. And that was me when I found

out that I had all these different defects and I got stuck in

anxiety. So watch the movie. It

will make your year. It is. It is. Oh, gosh. Yeah. Turn off the

news. Watch that. Maybe before we

run out of time, there was one other really crucial topic I wanted

to just touch on, and that is the

dance between artificial intelligence and its

role in medicine versus or in.

I don't know what the right connective word is there, versus or in conjunction

with or in tandem, who knows, with some social

prescription. So can we just briefly touch on that?

Such a great question. And yeah, it's, you

know, it's something that I'm continuing to think about,

I'll be honest, and maybe I'll get some pushback for this. Totally understand.

You know, after writing this book, I get a lot of, like,

inquiries and, and notes from people who are working

in AI or the app space. And they

said human connection is so important. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And here we have this

app or this tool that's trying to simulate human connection.

And I have to say, my brother, it's funny,

this is like a big debate for us every year. My brother

works in AI. Love talking with him about this

because he just brings so much more insight. And maybe there is a future in

which the AI will get so, so good that we actually will

be able to supplant human connection

with this. My take, though, is that

there's a lot of hype about AI right now and for good reason.

Like when it comes to diagnostics, when it comes to,

I think this is a general rule for AI. When there is

some repetitive task that doesn't necessarily feel human

and would best be solved by a ton

of data addressing, then AI

in medicine is great because here's the thing, if we have

AI doing more of that diagnostic work, that probably

is not the reason why, you know, somebody got into healthcare in the first

place, is to run all these tests and, and do all this precision stuff.

That's great because it frees that healthcare provider

up a bit more to, to better tap into the human

part of medicine. And my response to all this would

be we have to see. But my

instinct is we have

these tremendous opportunities and outlets for connection that have

been a source of healing for us for

thousands and thousands of years. I would like to see more of

medicine focus on that rather than this thing that we're

sort of like, kind of taking a chance on. You know, it's

sort of like, why would you reinvent the wheel? We have this thing in all

of its human imperfections. So that's my two

cents. Acupuncture. Pretty well established, if we

could say. And I just saw like

yesterday somewhere where AI data centers

and how resource intensive they are

and how much water it takes to keep them, them cool

and all the electricity it uses. And I'm just thinking about,

you know, California at this moment, LA is on

fire. And, you know, there's also like, environmental

implications. I had no idea till just yesterday. So

it's. But I, I like what you just said. Yeah,

let's, let's, let's go with what is proven.

And then I'm gonna air, you know, we're gonna. This is airing

in January and in March, I'm airing an incredible interview with

a cardiologist who really is looking to expand AI

and heart health. And it's just such an interesting, like, other

take on things. And so, you know, it's this,

the role of this podcast is just to present you with varying

perspectives. But I, I challenge him. I

challenge him on the soul connection and I challenge him on

the role of AI on our wrists when we're, you know, when our

watches are monitoring our hearts and how that actually caused health

anxiety for me and I needed stop wearing it. So.

Yeah. Oh my gosh, a hundred percent, yes. I

think that's a great point about the environmental as well. I

think that's absolutely it. Like with all this stuff,

just as you're not going to use a social prescription for everything, I don't think

AI should be used for everything. I think there are some things, like

health professionals right now, they do have way too much to do. There

was a study that found it would take a primary care physician

in The United States 26.7 hours in a

day to do everything they had to do in terms of preventative care,

administrative management. And you're thinking, yeah,

there's not 26.7 hours in a day. So

insofar as AI can, like, support some of

that administrative work that everybody hates,

that's great. But I do think that what you're

saying about your own experience of feeling like you were

sort of a machine when you're being treated with

so many machines, we can't discount that that

is real. That can have health consequences. So as usual, Boots,

I'm with you a hundred percent. Well,

Julia, this has just been an amazing conversation and we could go

for probably the rest of the day, but you have

more, more things to do today, so we are going to let you

go. But before you do, will you please tell us all the ways we

can find you? I will also have it in the show notes, but verbal is

also good. Well, Boots, thank you so much. Such an

honor to be here. We've been wanting to do this for, I think almost six

months, close to a year now, so it's such an honor.

Hope this is the first of many. And my the best

way to find me is through my socials. I'm

at Hot Stuff thoughts on Instagram x

hotsthoughts.com and for folks who are interested in learning

more about the Connect Secure and social prescribing,

encourage you to visit the book website at Social Prescribing

co. Thank you. And please encourage your bookstores to

get this book if they don't have it already. Encourage your local libraries

to order the book. It it just it should be

necessary. Read reading. It's rare that I feel that way about books,

but I feel like I have some street credit here with knowing that this

book really is part of the answer to us thriving

as a society. So thank you, Julia and

thank you listeners. And if you haven't already, will you please subscribe

to this podcast. That way you don't miss another episode.

And then lastly, will you please make my year and leave a

review? Your reviews matter and it helps tiny

podcasts like mine get seen and known around the world.

We're already downloaded in 75 countries, which just

blows my mind. But I want even more heart patients to

find this podcast. So thank you listeners for being here.

I wouldn't be here without you. I love you. You

matter and your heart is your best friend.