Ecological medicine is a new approach to health science that draws on a very old idea: connecting with each other, with animals and plants, and with the natural world fosters health and well-being for people and the planet. 

“Everything you suspected was good for you -- fresh air, trees, animal companions, purpose, reciprocity -- turns out to have peer-reviewed backing,” said Rebecca Calisi Rodríguez, associate professor of neurobiology, physiology and behavior and director of the Green Care Lab at the University of California, Davis.