Episode 192 | Aug 6, 2026

Healing Through Nature and Community, With Dr. Geeta Maker-Clark

What if some of the most powerful forms of medicine are already available all around us? This week on Health Coach Talk, Dr. Sandi welcomes integrative and functional medicine physician Dr. Geeta Maker-Clark to explore how nature, sunlight, movement, belonging, and community can support physical and emotional well-being. Their conversation draws from Dr. Geeta’s book, Medicine for All People: Science and Ancient Wisdom for Revolutionary Healing, which invites readers to expand their understanding of what medicine can be.

“We have this idea that a medicine is something you take or something comes from the outside or something that happens in a pharmacy or a clinic or in hospital. But medicine is plants, it’s dance, it’s nature, it’s rhythm, it’s trust, it’s community building and belonging.”

Dr. Geeta Maker-Clark

Dr. Geeta’s work is grounded in the belief that human health is deeply connected to relationships, with our bodies, one another, and the natural world. Drawing from modern research and ancestral wisdom, she explains how time outdoors may calm the stress response, support mood and attention, and help regulate the nervous system. She also examines loneliness as a biological and public health concern, the role of dance and shared joy in healing, and the ability of group medical visits to create motivation, trust, and meaningful support. As a physician practicing integrative and functional medicine within a large healthcare system, Dr. Geeta remains committed to making these approaches accessible to insured and uninsured patients alike.

For health coaches, this episode offers a powerful reminder that sustainable change often grows through connection rather than information alone. Coaches are uniquely positioned to help clients recognize everyday sources of nourishment, create realistic opportunities for time in nature and movement, and rebuild a sense of belonging through groups and supportive relationships. Dr. Geeta’s perspective also reinforces the value of collaborative care teams, where coaches and clinicians can share responsibility for helping people reconnect with the foundational practices that support health. Listen to the episode for an inspiring conversation about bringing humanity, accessibility, and community back into healthcare.

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Transcript

Dr. Sandi: Today, on “Health Coach Talk,” I have a guest who I’ve known for many years, and she lives in the same area that I do. And she is somebody who is a real trailblazer, but not because she is talking about the latest biohacking, the latest supplements, the latest medicines that you would get a prescription for. No. She is talking about basics that is accessible to all, things like nature as medicine, community, belonging as medicine, food as medicine.

And she has written a book that I am excited to share with you. It is called “Medicine for All People.” And it is going to be, I think, really a game changer, getting back to basics. She is someone who believes in the power of community in a healthcare setting where you have a collaborative care team, community when you are doing shared medical appointments, which she is in favor of. And she is a strong proponent of social justice and access to healthcare that is functional medicine, integrative medicine for everybody. And this is why her book is “Medicine for All People: Science and Ancient Wisdom for Revolutionary Healing.” I know you are going to really enjoy my conversation with Dr. Geeta Maker-Clark. Welcome, Geeta.

Dr. Geeta: Thank you, Sandi. It’s so great to be in connection again.

Dr. Sandi: Absolutely. I’ve followed you for many years, and I saw you at IFM give this amazing keynote presentation. This topic and the things that you’re passionate about really resonate with me, and I know our listeners as well. And so, I want to talk about your book, “Medicine for All People.” But let’s start by talking about some very basic things that I think we haven’t talked about enough. And that’s what you address in this book. But nature as medicine, can you go into the science behind this idea that being outside can be healing, in general?

Dr. Geeta: I know. Right? It’s something that we know so deeply and innately, Sandi. It’s like we know when we’re outside, we feel better, that our bodies and our spirits and our souls get really connected and regulated. And we’re just not conscious of how deep of a medicine this really is for us to be outside because we are animals. We are animals like every other animal on this planet, and we are meant to be out of doors. We’ve created a life that is very interior, that is very walled. And it’s a life that, I think, has been very much a product of our productivity and consumerism and our capitalist frameworks. But truly, nature is where our bodies are meant to be. And it’s the oldest medicines…one of the oldest medicines that we have.

So, modern science is helping us understand why it is so vital, and reminding us why this ancestral wisdom actually does what it does and feels how it feels. So, time in nature has been shown to calm our stress response, to decrease our cortisol levels, to reduce rumination, which I think is such an interesting binding to reduce our overthinking, to support our mood and neurotransmitter production, to improve our attention. There’s a great deal of research around how nature deficit actually reduces our ability to be focused and attentive, and that there is a great deal of risk reduction for ADHD when we spend more time in nature, and specifically when children do. And we have research that it helps regulate the nervous system.

The research is fascinating to me, especially the work that I cite in the book in Japan around forest bathing, where almost 70% of the country is covered in forest. And so, they have this remarkable practice of…they’ve studied the physiologic effect of being in the forest and the incredible chemicals that the trees are putting out into the air that are actually antiviral and antibacterial, and create that incredible smell that we love when we’re in the forest, but that it’s all protective and that it’s actually all real physiologic, biological medicine.

But in addition to me, the deeper medicine of nature isn’t just biochemical. That’s a huge part of it, but it’s relational. It’s reminding us that we’re not separate, that we’re not machines moving through the world, but we are living beings in a living system, and that we…when we touch soil, when we are under the trees, when we’re listening to the birds, and gazing at the sky and the horizon, when we are growing food, when we are witnessing the seasonal change, we are remembering ourselves. We are remembering where we belong. And that’s what the heart of the book is about.

Dr. Sandi: That is so beautiful. And you’re absolutely right. There’s something special that happens when you’re outside. So, we, as this is being recorded, are experiencing extremely toxic air. And so, there’s been gone outside when the air quality index was in the hazardous zone and really felt this loss of…I was so desperately wanting to go outside. It is really critical. And there’s been so many studies of depression, for example, people who go outside and…or creativity, the ability to problem solve. It just comes to you when you’re outside and nature bathing and you’re just walking. That sense of combining movement with being outside is so much richer experience than walking on a treadmill.

Dr. Geeta: That’s exactly right. It’s not a luxury. It’s a birthright. It’s a public health issue to me that we have…we should all have access to clean air, as we’re speaking about right now, Sandi, to parks and trees and safe water and gardens and that this matters so deeply for our health, maybe more than anything else.

Dr. Sandi: Absolutely. And this is…I love that this is your book, “Medicine for All People,” because it doesn’t cost anything to go outside. And many people think they need expensive supplements or fancy biohacking devices for good health and longevity. And it’s really just going back to these simple things. And if you’re outside, also, you’re in the sun. Can you comment on that, the benefits of sunlight?

Dr. Geeta: Yes. And we’re built to be in the sun as well. The largest organ of our body is our skin. It’s this tremendous organ that can transform sunlight into a hormone, into vitamin D, which we have receptors on almost every cell in the body for vitamin D and that it…this this vitamin/hormone has such a powerful effect on our energy levels and our mood among so many other metabolic functions. But I focus on those because so many of my patients, so many people who come to see me are there for low energy and low mood. And they may have all their numbers of their labs just perfect. And they’re exercising and sleeping and eating and doing all the things that they should be and want to be doing. But they’re still not feeling well. And I’ll often say, how much time are you spending outside? Are you just getting outside and letting the sun whenever we get to have it here in the Midwest?

Dr. Sandi: Yeah.

Dr. Geeta: Because it is…again, it’s a remembering. It’s a remembering for the body as well, to have sun on the skin to remember what that feels like. And then for all of those incredibly sophisticated cellular processes be fueled by this incredible cell, this energy cell, that is the sun, that is this Earth.

Dr. Sandi: Yeah. This is reminding me years ago when I was part of the hospital system, and I would have consults for people, mainly oncology, and they were bedridden and they weren’t going outside. Unfortunately, the hospital didn’t have a solarium, which has been years ago, which would be so wonderful to get people outside. But we would do imagery because that was all they had. So, looking out the window, looking up at the sky, or if there was some ray of sun filtering through, imagine they were outside because that was what they…the only thing they had. And even that was powerful to just…if you just look outside and even if it’s only a window that you’ve got. But that can…that you can elaborate on that and pair it with breath work.

Dr. Geeta: I love that, Sandi. And actually, it’s interesting you bring up the solarium. As soon as you said that, it reminded me that my father, who’s a surgeon, told me back in the days in early Chicago medicine in the late ’60s, he…all of his post-operative patients would be taken up to the solarium at the top floor of the hospital. And what happened to that? We knew that mattered, that that helped even to see the sun, to see the greenery outside. So, yeah, it’s a beautiful thing we can go back to.

Dr. Sandi: Yeah. That hospital, I had even proposed to leadership that they start a rooftop garden. For sprouts or microgreens or just do something for… And of course, that was like, not good. They were not going to pick up on that. This was in the ’90s, early ’90s, and being in a garden and being in the dirt and all that, which is so restorative. There’s something else that you also talk about, and I’m such a big believer, and that is belonging. And can you comment on the role of belonging and maybe how we’ve gotten away from that in today’s world?

Dr. Geeta: Yes, belonging. This is one of the central medicines in “Medicine for All People.” It’s the through line, in fact, of all of the chapters and all of the remembrances that I go through. Because human beings are not meant to be in isolation. We’re pack animals, we’re herd animals. We are our healthiest and happiest when we are in community. And our nervous systems have been shaped over thousands of years, tens of thousands of years by safety and connection and touch and trust. And the cultures that we build and that feeling of belonging allows us to feel that we are held by something much larger than ourselves. And it’s very regulating to our nervous systems.

And this is so important in this moment where so many of us are feeling really dysregulated for many good reasons. This is a very difficult time in human history. And there’s nothing more powerful than people collecting. The power of the people comes from belonging and connection. And actually, we are weakened the most when we are separated, which is why colonizing forces throughout history have sought to divide and conquer people. They’re much weaker alone.

So, I talk about this in the book because loneliness, it’s not just an emotion. It’s also biological. When we’re seeing that chronic isolation can actually keep the body in a state of threat, that it can make us feel terrible. And that’s a result of increased stress hormones, increased inflammatory biomarkers, sleep disruption that comes from that, anxiety, of course, depression, it puts us at higher risk for chronic disease. So, in that sense, loneliness is one of the greatest public health crises of our time.

And the book and the work asks us to see belonging as a medicine as well, that belonging to our bodies, our families, our communities, our ancestors, this Earth, is not about fixing what is broken as an individual. It’s about restoration of relationship. It’s about nourishment of what has been forgotten. And I think that safety and connection and love that is so deeply needed is at the core of our highest health.

Dr. Sandi: So beautifully said. These are such basic and important points that we’ve gotten away from. As you’re speaking reminded me, there was a famous book in 2000 called “Bowling Alone” by Robert Putnam, where he identified we don’t belong in clubs anymore. I remember in the ’50s, everybody belonged to a bowling league, a church group, the Elks, the Lions. They’ve had all of these clubs you belong to, and we’ve gone away from that. And of course, that was in 2000. Imagine now. It’s even worse. So, belonging to these kind of organizations and his premise and others he said that is how you’re able to change in terms of change society through these organizations. So, that has gone away.

And it’s also the…we are going through entire days. I wonder if you’d comment on that. We’re ordering from Instacart and DoorDash. So, we don’t…I love these Barbara Fredrickson, the positive psychology researcher, little microbursts of connection. So, you’re in a store, you run into a neighbor, the person who’s checking out, you talk to them. And we’ve gone away from that as we are just alone and using our phone to place orders. And we don’t go in stores anymore and talk to the shopkeeper because we’ve got Amazon.

Dr. Geeta: Right. And I think the convenience culture really has gone off the rails as…in the sense that what was created as a way to make our lives easier has actually turned into part of this sort of crisis that I’m describing of loneliness and isolation. And so, I think it’s going to be a incredibly important unlearning in this next chapter for us in humanity to start to rebuild and reconnect our roots to the Earth and our roots to each other. And I use that, that beautiful metaphor of the mycelium connection on the forest floor. The trees may look like they are growing in isolation and in strength of their own power and their own root system. But they are communicating every moment of the day with all of the other trees in their community through the mycelial underground network. And that is how they survive. No trees. And that’s how we operate, too.

So, the call to action for me is really thinking about the ways in which your life can be enriched by being in community. And that may feel very daunting to people, especially who have grown very accustomed to being alone. But there is a convenience to being alone. I don’t have to deal with people’s drama. I don’t have to deal with the inconveniences of shopping in a store, what have you. But I think that if we start taking micro steps towards reintegration into community, that…like you said, these microbursts of connection with the shopkeeper, with the person checking you out at the grocery store or just running into someone you know when you go for a walk, have that…if we perceive that as medicine, and that’s really where the paradigm shift is, if we perceive this not as just like a passing fancy, but as a medicine that is vital to our health, I do think we can reclaim that which has always been ours.

Dr. Sandi: Oh, absolutely. And what we train in our health coaches do is to lead groups. Because it’s so powerful. When I was a health psychologist, I led all kinds of groups. And that became the medicine for social proof. Oh, if she can do it, I guess I can, too. And to the sense of getting healthy together. And there’s just such a rich history of support groups and therapy groups and the value of group medical visits, shared medical appointments also have been very valuable. So, can you comment on the value of groups as an intervention?

Dr. Geeta: Oh, absolutely. I love that you brought that up because I have also just recently started running group visits in my practice after a long time of figuring out, as we do in large health care systems, how to do things. And it has been so enriching for me as well as for the group to be able to share the experiences that my patients are having. They’re not just sharing with me now, they’re sharing with each other. And there’s such a beautiful transplanting of information and sharing of struggle that you can feel is empowering even in a virtual visit. Even on Zoom, I can see these friendships developing and the support developing that is so vital and was what keeps people coming back to them.

So, I agree with you. I think that a group visit actually brings us back to the ancient forms of medicine. Medicine was never one-on-one, actually. It was usually many people coming to a healer, in circles sitting around, receiving wisdom and sharing wisdom with each other. And I do think this group visit model has the potential to remind us again of those ancestral roots of medicine, but to provide the kind of community that especially if you’re sick and suffering and challenged by your health is so vital to stay in the motivational place of wanting to be better, which is incredibly important for healing.

Dr. Sandi: Yeah, it’s magical. I ran groups for years. One was in an oncology office. We took over…it was in the basement of their staff kitchen. It went on for years. And these were mostly older folks. And Medicare wasn’t reimbursing, but they would just pay what you can. This one woman, she had $5 in cash and she was so excited. And she would be…when a new member would come in and she’d say, oh, if I could…if I could stop eating candy at night while watching TV, you can, too. And we’re all here for you. Many came because of the loneliness. They would have a caretaker take them, but it was…after a while, they were coming for the camaraderie, for the group as opposed to learning something, for example, or making behavior changes in terms of diet or exercise. But it was just the sense of belonging to this group.

So, this is really the most powerful medicine. So, can you just reiterate that people have forgotten these very powerful medicines?

Dr. Geeta: Yes. And really what this book really asks us to expand what we mean when we say medicine. We have this idea that a medicine is something you take or something comes from the outside or something that happens in a pharmacy or a clinic or in hospital. But medicine is all of these things we’ve been discussing, Sandi. It’s plants, it’s dance, it’s nature, it’s rhythm, it’s trust, it’s community building and belonging.

And so, challenging the narrowness of how we have translated medicine in modern health care is why I think this is revolutionary for us to really consider that health is not…it’s personal, but it’s not only personal. It really is about how the way that we live builds our physiology, actually. And it matters more than any supplement we take or any medicine that we take. And so, ultimately, I think what I want to share is that remembering where we’ve come from, what our ancestors needed to do to get us here, that those medicines belonging to our bodies, belonging to each other, to the Earth, has always been much larger than a prescription pad. And that this individual and collective healing will move us out of darkness and into a much lighter and more joyful chapter of human history.

Dr. Sandi: Absolutely. Even the power of belief, believing that this is healing, that you will feel good afterwards. And to go to dance…I vaguely remember that you were involved with dance at some point. I take ballet…I have taken ballet classes for years in two different locations, and both have this tremendous community that has risen where we have become really good friends, we have social events, like someone will sponsor a dinner, everybody bring…we’re going to make one big salad and everybody brings something for the salad. And so, it’s grown into friendships beyond the learning to dance or the technique. And somebody else has started for women or people over 50, not just women, but time to dance that anybody can learn to dance no matter… There’s 90-year-olds in my class.

Dr. Geeta: I love it.

Dr. Sandi: That is such a great example of community coming together, working together on a dance routine.

Dr. Geeta: Yes. Dance is so powerful. It so harkens back the original ways in which our ancestors healed. We danced at funerals, we danced at births and at weddings and at seasonal change. And this is how we came into community and experienced joy together. And again, I think that the forces of colonization and assimilation have stripped away our sense that dance is actually a community and an important daily activity.

But this is something I talk about a lot in the book as well and at many conferences that I speak at is that you can dance right now. You can dance for five minutes a day and have your whole life be transformed by this. And your brain loves it, your body loves it, your spirit loves it. And reclaiming that joy is one of the most powerful things you can do for your health. And it’s free, and it’s available to you at any time. It’s a miracle to me. So, like you, I love dancing. It’s the happiest that I am. It’s helped me overcome a lot of difficulties and challenges and chronic pain. I feel like, personally, it’s changed my life.

Dr. Sandi: Yeah. The research is so good about dance. And I’ve taken tap as well. And it’s good for your memory. It is good for…you have…physically, it’s good, but the social, I think, is most important. So, you are in a traditional hospital system. Because you are…you stand out in this system. What are some of the things that you might say might be encouraging in terms of your ability to do this work within a system?

Dr. Geeta: Yeah. I’m very much a zebra in this moment, practicing integrative and functional medicine within a large healthcare system, accepting insurance and, you know, working with all of those. Those can be more challenging aspects of the modern healthcare system. Our program is…our integrative medicine program has actually been around for 25 years. It’s one of the oldest in the country. We’re very proud of that.

And I also will say, there are challenges, as there are with any practice. And I think that it is vital for each person to decide how they want to show up in the world as a healthcare professional, as a physician, as a healer. How do you want to be accessible to people? How do you want to show up? And the way that I’ve chosen is to show up for patients that are insured or uninsured, and want to have the best possible care from these modalities that they’ve heard about and read about, but can’t access private care physicians for.

So, that’s the personal decision that I made. It’s not the most…may not be the appropriate decision for everyone, but for me, it’s…I based a career around social justice and wanting to be at the forefront of making care as accessible as possible, even as I continue to do trainings, that made it…pushed me further and further out of mainstream medicine. I think that our model is an example of how you can make it work wherever you are. I will not say it’s easy, but I don’t think anything is easy that’s excellent.

Dr. Sandi: Yeah. Well, I love your mission and I’m thinking of people like Dr. Terry Wahls, who’s functional medicine…who for years worked out of the VA insurance based and made it work. And she didn’t have her patients spend thousands of dollars on fancy labs or supplements.

And in the health coaching world, something that just happened that I’m so excited, I think it has so much promise is the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services just for 2027 is proposing that health and wellness coaching will be a reimbursable service, which I think will be a game changer, having access to health coaching in hospital systems and medical practices where they are insurance based. This will be a way that people with chronic medical conditions can get that support because coaches will be talking about what you’re describing and helping them to get back to these basics, these basic medicines, food is medicine, exercise, nature is medicine, community. That’s what coaches do. They focus on those lifestyle factors.

Dr. Geeta: Yeah. This is wonderful news. I’m really hopeful and optimistic that is going to go through and that we can collaborate. We can collaborate more and not have so much burden falling on any one practitioner within our teams because, again, we need communities even as practitioners to be able to do our best work.

Dr. Sandi: Absolutely. Yeah. The office, it’s a community collaborative care, team effort. Well, this has been such a wonderful conversation. It is a sheer delight to be with you, Dr. Geeta. Where can people find you? Where can they find the book?

Dr. Geeta: Yes. Thank you so much for having me, Sandi. You can find me on my website, drgeetamakerclark.com. There is a informational button there to click and preorder my book, which would be wonderful. It does launch… “Medicine for All People: Science and Ancient Wisdom for Revolutionary Healing” launches on August 11th at all bookstores, all online sellers. You can buy from your indie, ask your library to stock it, and I’ll be delighted to share the message and speak more with your listeners as the weeks and months pass.

Dr. Sandi: Thank you so much. This has been such a wonderful conversation.

Dr. Geeta: Thank you, Sandi. I love speaking with you.