Want to improve your health? Do gardening, join walking groups and cooking clubs

A new study shows how prescribing non-medical activities helps people with long term health conditions.

Turns out, you can benefit from a medically prescribed, slow and progressive approach to physical fitness.

Gyms, walking groups, gardening, cooking clubs and volunteering have all been shown to work in improving the health and well-being reported by a group of people with long-term conditions. Key to the success was a ‘Link Worker,’ who helped participants select their activities and supported them throughout the programme.

The in-depth Newcastle University study shows how social prescribing of non-medical activities helps people with long term health conditions. Researcher Suzanne Moffatt said that the findings demonstrated that social prescribing, such as offering someone with heart disease the opportunity to take part in a gardening club, does work.

“People who took part in the study said social prescribing made them more active, it helped them lose weight and they felt less anxious and isolated, as a result they felt better,” she noted, adding, “This is the first time that these kind of non-medical interventions have been fully analysed for physical health problems and the results are very encouraging.” Moffat continued, “What the study also highlighted was the importance of a specific individual, a Link Worker, to help people with issues such as welfare benefits, debt, housing - so they were helping with the whole life and lifestyle which was shown to improve the person’s health and well-being.”

In the interviews they explained how working with a Link Worker to find the right activity and to get support in dealing with financial problems had built self-confidence, self -reliance and independence. Activities such as gardening, dance clubs and voluntary work helped them lose weight and increase fitness leading to people managing the pain and tiredness better. It also led to them feeling less socially isolated and impacted positively on self-esteem and mental well-being.

Ways to Wellness covers the west of Newcastle, including 17 GP practices where 18 % of residents have long-term conditions and receive sickness and disability-related benefits. People who have asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes (Type 1 or Type 2), heart disease, epilepsy, osteoporosis (thinning of the bones) and any of these conditions with depression and/or anxiety are eligible for the scheme. The Link Worker also helps patients to access other support, services and local activities. The study was published in BMJ Open.

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