I chose to read The Natural health Service by Isabel Hardman because I've increasingly found being outside has been a great boost to my mental health.

This is a timely book after many found the first lockdown in the sumer the time to rediscover the outdoors and what we could do in it. To this effect, Hardman covers this in a preface to the novel.

I am a runner and I like to take walks. I thought I'd already grasped how important being outside, on nature, is for me. This book has opened my eyes to, well, open my eyes and really look around me at what's out there: the sights, sounds, and smells. It's a great way to take yourself away fro your thoughts for a while.

There are many activities and interests covered here, all of them what the author likes to do. I found it somewhat overwhelming just how much she does! Swimming, running, cycling, Parkrun, gardening, to name a few. I think we need to read this book, especially if in a low mood, and not compare, hard as that can be to do. The author is trying to show what is on offer outside, not prescribing we do it all.

The book is part memoir, part informative, part self-help. I had to skip certain parts as they weren't relevant to me but this is to be expected with this kind of book. I think if you buy this book expecting self-help alone you will be disappointed. This is more Hardman's story, conveyed to show what nature can do for a person. There are lots of references to gardens and plants. Not my thing but others might love that.

Overall, this is a good book highlighting how nature can help us to survive and possibly heal, alongside conventional medicine. The political mainfesto at the end may be a problem for some but it's important. Now, more than ever, mental health services need funding and more importance attached to them to make them more accessible.

How nature can improve mental health.

In advocating the 'Natural Health Service', Journalist Hardman offers a variety of ways in which we can benefit from the great outdoors.

Written from the author's own experience of mental ill health, each chapter covers a different activity, including running, cycling, walking, wild swimming, forest bathing, horticultural therapy and assistance/therapy animals. Hardman discusses relevant, although not always recent, research and provides the names of recognised organisations in the respective fields..

The references section provides a useful list of further reading.

Accessible.

My thanks to NetGalley and Atlantic Books for the ARC.

Isabel Hardman suffered a trauma which she chooses not to share. She says that a friend who does know, burst into tears and health-care professionals' jaws have sagged in disbelief. Hardman dealt with this at the time by 'keeping going': the next day she went to work to cover the budget, next there was the EU referendum, the political party leadership contests and then it was party conference season. One night she had to be sedated and returned home to begin long-term sick leave. That was what brought me to this book: 2020 was the year when the bins went out more often than I did.

For me there was a long-buried trauma brought into the daylight by what might have seemed to be a minor incident. I've always had mild agoraphobia: lockdown had allowed it to blossom and that minor incident meant that I dreaded leaving the house and even the garden had ceased to be a place of safety. I needed help but I couldn't see any point in calling the doctor's surgery: appointments are rarer than hen's teeth and I'd only be given a prescription. I needed a plan - not drugs. I didn't feel that I was that ill.

Hardman had reached the stage where she couldn't get her words to sit in a row which is more than awkward when you're a journalist. Even after her long-term sick leave, she would have several relapses and has concluded that she will never be the person she was and will probably never be able to talk publicly about what happened to her. She has been prescribed drugs but found that she needed something else. She found something to help quell her churning mind and she calls it The Natural Health Service: I would probably have called it the great outdoors.

She had always had a passion for gardening and a deep interest in botany, so her first steps were to take an obsessive interest in wildflowers, starting with orchids. The first step forward was when a rare orchid gave her twenty minutes of mental peace - when she wasn't thinking about herself. The distraction soothed her mind and so began the quest for other ways in which she could do something outside which would increase the periods of calm.

Hardman was disturbed by the cost of getting better: anyone who is this ill is almost certainly off work and possibly not earning. Who, she asks, has savings these days? So she looked at ways of distracting her mind which would not be expensive to anyone in this position. After looking at wildflowers, she considered gardening, birdwatching, the quest for rare snowdrops, walking, forest bathing, trees and running. They're all approached from the point of view of someone who does not have a great deal of money to spare: her major extravagance was a snowdrop, Lady Elphinstone, which cost £40. She suggests that your bank manager might steer you away from snowdrops!

The Natural Health Service is not promised as a cure-all but Hardman offers her suggestions with compassion and the level of research is impressive but you never feel over-burdened or pressured into doing something you might not enjoy. Searching out flowers (she had successes in Glasgow car parks) is never going to be for me but I am determined that I am going to get out and walk more. I used to be a great deal fitter than I am now so I will build up my distances and by spring I would like to be getting up to the moors.

The style of writing makes the book very accessible and it's frequently funny. I felt inspired to do something to help myself, to take responsibility for my mental health. My first step: Hardman suggested looking for a small sign of hope. Without much confidence, I went to my office window, looked down on the lilac tree and before the middle of December spotted the green buds which will be next year's flowers and leaves.

I'd like to thank the publishers for letting Bookbag have a review copy.

A really informative look at alternatives to medication for some mental health illnesses. Everything is talked about in a caring empathetic manner. I feel that so many people would benefit from this book. It explains why I have friends who run to relieve stress. I have a few friends who garden to relieve stress. I am so glad I read this book. It has given me a lot to think about.

Thank you to NetGalley for my copy.