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HOW physical places can enhance or damage our health may sound unscientific, but constructs a convincing argument in this book.

The journey begins with a in which hospital patients were found to recover more quickly if their windows overlooked a grove of trees rather than a brick wall. From there, we learn how sunlight, meditation, music and exercise can affect the balance of hormones and neurotransmitters in the central nervous system – and how these in turn can impact on the immune system.

In isolation, these studies might seem easy to dismiss, but gathered together in a dossier like Healing Spaces, you start to believe that there might be something in it after all. .

What Sternberg does so skilfully is to stitch together an explanation as to how so many of the things we intuitively find relaxing, like yoga, or sitting by the sea, or in a bright airy room, affect how quickly we heal. She provides the science to back it up and explains it so engagingly that it’s hard to resist sharing her conviction.

What is missing from the book is a precise figure on just how great a contribution a restful atmosphere makes to healing – something health chiefs are sure to demand before making changes in our hospitals. Nevertheless, it provides a pleasant glimpse of the possible future of rest and recuperation.