Recovery: The Lost Art of Convalescence

by Gavin Francis

“An essential book for our times, full of wisdom, compassion and sound advice. Every patient needs a copy of this gem.” –Katherine May, author of Wintering and Enchantment

A gentle, expert guide to the secrets of recovery, showing why we need it and how to do it better

For many of us, time spent in recovery—from a broken leg, a virus, chronic illness, or the crisis of depression or anxiety—can feel like an unwelcome obstacle on the road to health. Modern medicine too often assumes that once doctors have prescribed a course of treatment, healing takes care of itself. But recovery isn’t something that “just happens.” It is an act that we engage in and that has the potential to transform our lives, if only we can find ways to learn its rhythms and invest our time, energy, and participation.

Drawing on thirty years of medicine, and on insights from practitioners, psychologists, and writers across history, physician Gavin Francis delivers a profound, practical, and deeply hopeful guide to recovery. Rejecting the idea that healing is passive, Recovery offers tools and wisdom for convalescence, and shows how tending to our bodies, environments, and perspectives can help us move through the landscape of illness—and come out the other side whole.

Genres: Nonfiction, Health, Self Help, Medical, Medicine, Mental Health, Essays

144 pages, Hardcover

Published September 5, 2023

About the author

Gavin Francis was born in Scotland in 1975, and has travelled widely on all seven continents. He has crossed Eurasia by motorcycle, and spent a year in Antarctica. He works as a medical doctor as well as a writer.

When travelling he is most interested in the way that places shapes the lives and stories of the people who live in them.

His first book, True North: Travels in Arctic Europe, explores the history of Europe's expansion northwards from the first Greek explorers to the Polar expeditions of the late 19th and 20th centuries. It was nominated for a William Mills Prize for Polar Books. Of it Robert Macfarlane wrote: 'a seriously accomplished first book, by a versatile and interesting writer... it is set apart by the elegance and grace of its prose, and by its abiding interest in landscapes of the mind. Francis explores not only the terrain of the far North, but also the ways in which the North has been imagined... a dense and unusual book.'

In 2011 he received a Creative Scotland Writer's Award towards the completion of a book about the year he spent living beside a colony of Emperor Penguins in Antarctica. Empire Antarctica will be published by Chatto & Windus in November 2012.

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.5) Just over a year ago, I reviewed Dr Gavin Francis’s Intensive Care, his record of the first 10 months of Covid-19, especially as it affected his work as a GP in Scotland. It ended up on my Best of 2021 list and is still the book I point people to for reflections on the pandemic. Recovery serves as a natural sequel: for those contracting Covid, as well as those who have had it before and may be suffering the effects of the long form, the focus will now be on healing as much as it is on preventing the spread of the virus. This lovely little book spins personal and general histories of convalescence, and expresses the hope that our collective brush with death will make us all more determined to treasure our life and wellbeing.

Francis remembers times of recovery in his own life: after meningitis at age 10, falling off his bike at 12, and a sinus surgery during his first year of medical practice. Refuting received wisdom about scammers taking advantage of sickness benefits (government data show only 1.7% of claims are fraudulent), he affirms the importance of a social safety net that allows necessary recovery time. Convalescence is subjective, he notes; it takes as long as it takes, and patients should listen to their bodies and not push too hard out of frustration or boredom.

Traditionally, travel, rest and time in nature have been non-medical recommendations for convalescents, and Francis believes they still hold great value – not least for the positive mental state they promote. He might also employ “social prescribing,” directing his patients to join a club, see a counsellor, get good nutrition or adopt a pet. A recovery period can be as difficult for carers as for patients, he acknowledges, and most of us will spend time as both.

I read this in December while staying with my convalescent mother, and could see how much of its practical advice applied to her – “Plan rests regularly throughout the day,” “Use aids to avoid bending and reaching,” “Set achievable goals.” If only everyone being discharged from hospital could be issued with a copy – pocket-sized and only just over 100 pages, it would be a perfect companion through any recovery period. I’d especially recommend this to readers of Maggie O’Farrell’s I Am, I Am, I Am and Christie Watson’s The Language of Kindness.

Favourite lines:

At one level, convalescence has something in common with dying in that it forces us to engage with our limitations, the fragile nature of our existence. Why not, then, live fully while we can?

If we can take any gifts or wisdom from the experience of illness, surely it’s this: to deepen our appreciation of health … in the knowledge that it can so easily be taken away.

Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[madi · Rating 3 out of 5]

after my long and gorgeous medical history i do think there’s a ceiling to how well i can take health advice from a white man with a medical degree named gavin, so the 3 star rating is not personal. i think this is a good synthesis on different idea about convalescence, and might be helpful to someone figuring out how to heal. i really enjoyed his exploration of healing as akin to gardening — a careful cultivation of balance and wellness, tending to the body like a plant.

at points, this reminded me of a professor who kept regaling me one semester with stories of two different chronically ill people she knew; one she described as “choosing to not let her sickness define her,” and the other as “succumbing to her illness and giving up on her life.” what that professor was actually describing was two different people experiencing objectively different levels of illness, but non disabled people love to construct theories of morality around sickness to feel safe in the knowledge they could “overcome” whatever might happen to them if they were to become sick. that isn’t the approach the author takes here, but he doesn’t explicitly renounce that reading of his work regarding the role that elements like placebo and mindset play in the experience of illness, which gives me the heebie jeebies a little bit.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can’t remember why I had this little book on my shelf, but I knew I wanted it off the list this year — and it turned out to be quite an interesting read.

It explores the lost art of convalescence: that gradual period of recovery after illness or injury where the body regains strength through rest and care. Simple, obvious even, but something we rarely think about anymore.

I was struck by the idea that the placebo is the most tested “drug” in science — and honestly, I wasn’t surprised to learn how powerful it can be. And I liked the historical detail about how hospitals used to be built so patients could look out at greenery rather than concrete car parks. It makes you realise how far we’ve drifted from environments that actually support healing.

Do I think we’ve lost the art of convalescence? Yes. And in a capitalist world that prioritises productivity over rest, I think it will stay lost.

A solid three‑star read. Interesting, thoughtful, and I’m glad it’s now off my list.

[Helena · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable, short mediation on convalescence; its history and how it is viewed today. I’m very interested in books that counter “productivity culture” and this definitely falls into that category, coming at the subject from a health/illness perspective.

[Alisha · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a beautiful little book about healing, rest, and recuperation. It called out to me from a library shelf of newly acquired books, and I'm glad I brought it home. It's gentle and full of wisdom. Even reading it feels like a rest from toil.
It's also a lightweight, slim, soft volume that's easy on the hands--particularly fitting for its audience of convalescents.

[Story · Rating 5 out of 5]

Compassionate and illuminating.

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who has had health issues my entire life, and been disabled for the past 13 years with chronic fatigue, this book was like a calming hug. This is a doctor that just gets it. And this book taught me interesting things from history as well as letting me know that I am doing the best that I can. There can be joy and meaning even in illness, and I would highly recommend this little book to anyone struggling with their health.

[Christina Sweeney-Baird · Rating 5 out of 5]

A God send of a book. Thoughtful, meditative, wise but never didactic. As someone who has been seriously ill recently, I found myself welling up at the idea of illness as a part of life that, for all its agonies, can be accepted. I hope to find, as the author describes, a negotiated peace.

[Jill Andrews · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kind, wise and wonderful.

[🌶 peppersocks 🧦 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reflections and lessons learned:
“With a limb it seemed possible to objectify the part that needed recovery, to look down on the leg and say that's the problem, right there. Working to build up the leg was effort-ful but also visual, my progress inscribed in the bulk of my thigh, the colour of my skin, the comparison with the healthy leg at its side”

A wonderfully short summary (even the sentences on the page are narrow for ease) of recovery, ideal for anyone that feels bogged down, struggling for support and searching for a simple word based aid to help a situation. No one can feel 100% everyday and then simply keel over at the end, but why does illness make us feel so guilty, unusual and vulnerable.

This example based selection is not only comforting to allow us to take a break from the norm, but also from a scientific basis of what our bodies can achieve without us knowing. An author that I’m definitely interested to read more from for both a work and biological life entity perspective

[Gary Anderson]

Recovery: The Lost Art of Convalescence by Scottish physician Gavin Francis came to me at exactly the right time. I currently find myself navigating persistent health issues that seem to be very slowly fading. In other words, I’m in recovery; I’m convalescing. It’s a strange place to be. I’m getting better, but sometimes I have serious setbacks. It plays with my head as much as my body. Dr. Francis’s book was extremely helpful to me as it covers how to best approach and think about recovery, as well as how one’s attitude toward the illness can affect recovery. For example, those of us in the Western world are conditioned to value efficiency, and recovery is rarely efficient. As Dr. Francis says, “Sometimes, slow recoveries are the most effective kind.” At the same time, he notes that “We are gregarious beings who need to act in the world, and any idea of convalescence that doesn’t take this into account is doomed to fail.” Practical advice is contextualized with plenty of relevant lessons from history, philosophy, and linguistics. (English teachers wil find a lot to love in this little book.) For anyone recovering from injury or physical or mental illness, the 116 pages of Recovery are well worth the time.

[J.Norcliffe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Much needed exploration of a sadly neglected concept

Best discussion of the plight of anyone who has the misfortune to become Ill, since Dr Richard Asher in the talking sense books of 60 years ago. Balanced insights into the partnership between health care professionals and the individual. The healing process and focus on a person's potential. As a nurse for 50 years this feels like back to the fundamentals of what we should be trying to achieve in this partnership. Cogent well written I would recommend this book to ALL health care professionals to re engage them with the fundamentals of our craft

[Katy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book came to me at the perfect time, curtailing what I hope is the end of active cancer treatment. I have been in the midst of a full return to work, working out, retuning to “normal” life. And about mid-September I started hitting walls. I was too tired to do the things I had returned to with gusto. Then I wasn’t sleeping well. Then I didn’t have energy for walks after work. Then I could ONLY go to work. And then I started to get sick. Again.

This book normalizes slowing down, taking a break, and truly healing your body, mind and spirit. I want to own this book, gift this book, make my dr’s recommend this book to all their patients. So well done, much needed, and easily read.

[Cat · Rating 4 out of 5]

For such a small book it packs a lot of wisdom.

[Ashton Trimble · Rating 5 out of 5]

So good that I recommended it to a patient before I'd even finished! Everyone should read this book.

[Maryann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very readable, interesting short book about a neglected topic.

[Bramble Redwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

validating little morsel
would have been 5 but im feeling particularly sensitive to the one size fits all "a pet will help your mental health" truism rn

[John Blacksad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gavin Francis’in kalemini seviyorum. Yazı yazan hekimleri seviyorum. İster kurgu olsun, ister hatıra, ister mesleki deneyimler… Francis’in bu yeni kitabının da hızlıca Türkçe yayınlanmasına sevindim.

İsminde vadettiği üzere “iyileşme” üzerine bir kitap. Daha doğrusu bir kitap”çık”. Sayfa sayısı ve boyutlarıyla pek kibar :) Bugün içinde bulunduğumuz sağlık sisteminin bir memnuniyet resmi vermediğini düşünüyorum. Türkiyede hastalar dertli, hekimler hayli dertli. Sorun/problem/araz temelli bu ilişki her yerde zordur ya, son yıllarda bizde daha dayanılmaz olduğunu söylemekten geri durmayacağım.

İşte bu atmosferde İyileşme kitabı, biraz absürt, biraz bu dünyadan değilcesine, manevi bir nahiflikte. Kanlı, gri-siyah, acımasız bir savaş sahnesinde, ordular birbirlerine çığlıklarla saldırırken kameranın yere dönüp (henüz basılıp ezilmemiş) ışıklı, renkli bir çiğdem çiçeğine zoom yaptığı bir film sahnesi canlanıyor kafamda (Sauron’un parmağının koptuğu savaşı düşünün mesela).

Francis’de sorunlardan bahsediyor ama hem hasta hem hekim olarak dahil olduğum sağlık sistemine dair hislerim maalesef bu yönde ve Francis’in değinileri bir çiçek zarifliğinde kalıyor.

Karanlık hislerimi bir tarafa bırakacak olursak :) hem hastalar (bu herkes demek oluyor sanırım) hem de doktorlar için kıymetli bir okuma diye düşünüyorum. Bazen bir durup düşünmek, bazen bir durup bakmak gerekiyor. Durmak gerekiyor. Yavaşlamak gerekiyor. Fakat biz vahşice bir hızla talep ve tüketim içindeyiz. Bu gürültü içinde talep ettiklerimize, bazen başkalarının hakkı pahasına ulaşabiliriz. Peki talep ettiklerimiz gerçekten ihtiyacımız olan şeyler mi? İhtiyaçlarımız neler? Ruh, duygular, acı, deneyim, zaman… Hız bir sıfır çarpanı gibi yutuveriyor her şeyi…

Farklı bir bakış açısı için, empati kurmak için, taze bir soluk için, hem hekimler hem de hastalara bu kısa kitabı/molayı öneriyorum.

[Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a very quick read, I finished this in just over an hour - and it's an hour of my life I used wisely. Dr Gavin Francis is a GP, offering in this book a view on how we have lost the idea of recovery in modern, Western medicine. We focus more on how to get people in and out of hospital, while placing no emphasis on their rest period when they leave.

I am recovering from a chronic brain condition. I never thought to use the word recovering - always saying "I have a brain condition which is in remission". Both statements are true, but one leads people to think I am free from the effects that suffering for years from this condition has done to my mind, brain and my body. This book helped to enlighten me on the use of the powerful word recovery.

This book is the first place I've heard of mind and brain being separate entities and it resonates with me so much. The book offers many ways to enable recovery and ideas for how to recover - including time in nature, travel and rest.

A fantastic read, I would recommend to all who are interested in the "art" of recovery and particularly to those who are in recovery themselves.

[Amy Watson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice little book: not too profound and pretty reliant on anecdotes but essentially one doctor’s attitude to healing. He leans a little too much on far flung historical and literary references to make his points, and not enough on science. Better researched this book could have been far more illuminating and useful but as it is it puts forth commen sense arguments encouraging rest, attitude, finding healthcare that’s right for you, getting away and optimising your environment.

[Mohammed omran · Rating 4 out of 5]

التعافي فن النقاهة المفقود

[cab · Rating 3 out of 5]

We need time to recover, but we also need a safe space in which to do it. (Ch. 2)

I picked up this book because of a review in the New Yorker by the physician Dhruv Kullar. Both the review and book begin with an anecdote: let me now tell my own. In my university days, I attended a talk on the nightsoil economy of Edo Japan – how what we now see as waste was prized as a commodity, how it what we might retroactively term a “sustainable” economy in using organic fertilizers and composting. After the talk, I went up to the presenter and rather naively said something along the lines of “modern plumbing bad nightsoil economy good”, which, if you think about it for one second is both ahistorical and nostalgically romanticized: what about the disease and sanitation issues, the widespread improper dumping and disposal of waste that came with the lack of a modern plumbing system?

I leave this book with similar questions about the medical institution and sanatorium: is the convalescence hospital truly something good for the 21st-century? The book has its merits: as Francis says, we ought to pay more attention to convalescence (which as he points out, refers to the word “to grow in strength”) and rest. The decreasing number of hospital beds means that often, patients are discharged pre-maturely: this is bad, there should be more beds. These are incontrovertible. However, we come to the issue of prescribed rest (here, something that feels rather like institutionalization). Gavin Francis touches on the issues of prescribed rest within an institution: he acknowledges the “scandalously trivial reasons” (Ch. 2) that people were often hospitalized for in the 20th-century, and introduces feminist critiques of Silas Weir Mitchell’s Rest cure, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Virginia Woolf,

[you] order rest in bed; rest in solitude; silence and rest; rest without friends, without books, without messages; six months’ rest; until a man who went in weighing seven stones six comes out weighing twelve. (Ch. 7)

Despite all this, the book seems to uphold an ahistorical and romanticized view of the sanatorium as an institution. Francis himself acknowledges Mitchell’s Rest Cure was “medically unwise”, yet the nostalgia is unmistakable. The criticisms are glossed over -- even with such reservations, Francis seems to display an (in my opinion) unjustified enthusiasm for the idea of prescribing rest. This comes across as odd to me: elsewhere, he scoffs at the idea of the UK government recommending that doctors prescribe vegetables to patients, writing that

… [t]here are those who, instead of addressing the social and economic causes of poor diet, prefer to rebrand poverty as a medical problem, and so pass it to health services to deal with. (Ch. 12)

while failing to consider that the same problem might be true of rest, that one cannot simply order rest, because (as Francis notes), poverty is not a medical problem: that people go to work despite their illnesses not because they don’t believe in the value of rest, but because of the consequences of taking days off (even with a doctor’s note!) in the gig economy.

Also, the individual essays/chapters could be better edited: one chapter bizarrely ends with the rather triumphant suggestion to “Get a pet.” without any elaboration or further follow-up.

[Amy Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book over two days after hearing Gavin Francis speak on The Encephalitis Podcast on Spotify. Out of all the materials I've read or been recommended post-meningoencephalitis I think this has been the most digestible, uplifting and realistic book I could have hoped for. Despite being clinically unwell more than 5 years ago (and we'll past the point of 'convalescing' in any traditional sense), I found the words of validation and encouragement in this book really helpful as I carry on considering how illness has changed me mentally, emotionally and physically.

"For all its irritations and frustrations, its agonies and humiliations, illness is a part of life that may teach something of value, even if that thing is only to cherish health when we have it... doctors and nurses are more like gardeners than mechanics, and healing happens thanks to the same force that greens the trees and pushes bulbs up through the earth. Be kind to yourself."

Would absolutely recommend to anyone who has been through illness or injury, or to anyone who has supported a loved one to go through the same.

[Connie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a short book written by a Scottish doctor and is packed with common sense and wisdom on recovering from illness or surgery. He covers a lot of ground in his compact book. He lists the physical conditions that assist recovery: finding the right balance between rest and gentle activity, good nutrition, quiet, nature, fresh air, sunlight. He also illustrates the importance of mental attitude and gives an example of two patients recovering from serious heart surgery, one full of optimism and appreciation for his life-saving operation, the other full of anxiety and fear. He advocates for patience and respect as the body has its own timetable for healing; it’s usually much slower than we, or our friends who wish us a “speedy recovery” with the best of intentions, realize. Healing takes time.

[Sasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this is an important book, but it was too surface level to make much of an impact for me. The author draws on a lot of other medical practitioners' ideas but doesn't expound on them enough. It's extremely short - around 120 pages - but I think it would have benefited from being longer, as rare as that it is to say of a book. It almost felt like a pamphlet.

That said, it is an approach to recovery I think is very valuable. There will be readers who find a lot of comfort and usefulness from this, but it did not have the same effect for me.

[Carly Zachman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a fantastic short nonfiction work that I think every healthcare professional has to read. This is a great commentary on what hospitals were meant for and what healing actually means. This book is also great for any individual who suffers with physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual pain. He address all aspects of recovery and it’s lost art. I especially recommend the author read audiobook. It was very well recorded and only 2.5 hours long. Well worth it!

[Richard Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now that we are again in a world where curing is largely over we should rediscover "the lost art of convalescence." Gavin Francis provides an excellent guide, and his "commandments" at the end of the book, which I've included in my blog, are full of wisdom.

https://richardswsmith.wordpress.com/...

[Abigail Owen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this little book on a whim from my library’s new non-fiction section. It wasn’t anything groundbreaking, but it was a nice simple read on the topic of recovery and the return to wellness. I did very much appreciate Francis’ call for a slower and more holistic approach to healing. He also had some neat multicultural tie-ins here and there.

[Niamh Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

"So give time, space and respect to convalescence if you can. It’s an act that we need to engage in, giving of ourselves; a work of effort and endurance, and to a certain extent of grace."

a lovely little book that offers a gentle counter to a culture that pressures us to always be available and productive no matter how we are feeling

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly recommend. Insightful and encouraging. I found it helpful as I am recovering from long covid and this book helps to shed light on the great importance of recovery and what aspects of life and its dynamics it involves.