C.H. Booth Library hosts several kinds of programs throughout the year, including programs that put patrons’ health at the forefront of the conversation.

On Tuesday, January 20, at 2 pm, in collaboration with Library Speakers Consortium, the local library will host author and journalist Julia Hotz.

Hotz’s book, The Connection Cure: The Prescriptive Power of Movement, Nature, Art, Service, and Belonging, combines diligent science reporting, moving patient success stories, and surprising self-discovery to help readers discover the lasting and life-changing power of social prescribing.

Traditionally, when people get sick, health care professionals ask, “What’s the matter with you?” But around the world, teams of doctors, nurses, therapists, and social workers have started to flip the script, asking “What matters to you?”

Science shows that social prescribing is effective for treating symptoms of the modern world’s most common ailments — depression, ADHD, addiction, trauma, anxiety, chronic pain, dementia, diabetes, and loneliness. By integrating age-old medicines like art, nature, movement, and volunteer service into patients’ daily lives, social prescriptions are radically changing health and healthcare in more than thirty countries. Hotz traveled around the world to survey them — sea-swimming lessons for depression, “culture vitamins” for anxiety, a fishing club for ADHD, a farm-based daycare for dementia, a phone-buddy program for social isolation, and many more.

The first book on social prescribing, The Connection Cure empowers readers to find, experience, and implement this revolutionary medicine into their own communities. The success stories Hotz finds bring a long-known theory to life: if people can change their environment, they can change their health. By reconnecting to what matters to them, individuals can all start to feel better.

Registration is required and available at chboothlibrary.org.

Another wellness program the library hosts is 30 Minutes Flex & Balance with Sean Fitzpatrick. Every Wednesday at 10:30 am, Fitzpatrick hosts an online program where everyone can practice their flexibility and balance.

The final wellness program, which readers may not associate with wellness outright, is Grateful Gathering. These events take place monthly and focus on providing a welcoming space for individuals to reflect and engage in meaningful conversations around gratitude and its role in fostering connection and well-being.

Grateful Gatherings include guided reflections, interactive discussions, and invitations to simple practices designed to inspire a sense of appreciation, elevate joy, and create an upward internal and external spiral.

The next gathering is planned for Tuesday, January 27, at 6 pm, in the Genealogy Room of C.H. Booth Library, 25 Main Street.