My Blog
I’m James Burns
Jim has always understood the benefits of exercise and is an advocate of helping schools build more activity time into student schedules to keep our children active and above all healthy. Jim is certified by the National Academy Of Sports Medicine (NASM) as a personal trainer and believes that exercise is the first step in reducing stress and becoming balanced mentally, socially, emotionally, and spiritually. As an educator Jim believes that knowledge is power and that everyone should understand the benefits of exercise. “I Trained For A Quadruple Bypass” (contained as part of this newsletter) explains his journey from the understanding one’s own health and how one can ready themselves physical, mentally, and spiritually and do so without fear. Having a history of heart disease and stroke in his family Jim has learned that we are not determined by our genetics we are only influenced, and we can change our response to the influence at any time.
Creeping Obesity: The Pounds You Barely Notice Until They Add Up
One of the biggest problems with weight gain is that it rarely happens overnight. Most people don't wake up one morning 30 or 40 pounds overweight. Instead, the weight quietly accumulates—a pound here, two pounds there—until one day they look in the mirror, step on...
Playground Politics
What Children Learn When We Let Them Play, Compete, and Solve Problems Several years ago, a New Hampshire school district made headlines when it voted to ban dodgeball and other “human target” sports. The concern was that games in which children throw balls at one...
The Power of Consistency: Why Routine Builds a Stronger Life
There is something incredibly powerful about doing the ordinary things in life over and over again. Get up. Make the bed. Take a shower. Get dressed. Have breakfast. Leave the house. Stop for a cup of coffee. Drive to work. Say good morning to the people you see every...
We Know Exercise Is Good for Us—So Why Don’t We Move?
Cognitive Dissonance, Physical Inactivity, and the Growing Culture of Disengagement There may be few areas of modern life where cognitive dissonance is more obvious than exercise. Ask almost anyone whether exercise is good for them, and the answer will be yes. People...
Managing Spinal Stenosis: Why Movement, Strength, and Persistence Matter
Spinal stenosis can change the way you live your life. I know because I am dealing with it myself. For someone who believes strongly in exercise, strength, and remaining physically independent, being told that the spinal canal has narrowed and may be putting pressure...
Let’s Teach Kids How to Play Again
There are some memories that never fade. When I was a kid, summer mornings had a rhythm all their own. I'd get up early, grab my baseball bat, a few baseballs, and my glove, load them into the basket on my bicycle, and head to the town park. Most mornings, I was the...
Training for Quadruple Bypass: Why My Starting Line Wasn’t My Finish Line
If you were to look at my family history, you would see a pattern that seemed almost impossible to escape. Stroke. Heart disease. Cardiovascular problems. They weren't isolated incidents—they were part of my family's story. For years, I believed that perhaps this...
Focus on What You Can Do, Not What You Can’t
One of the greatest obstacles to lifelong fitness isn't an injury, arthritis, a bad back, or even a chronic health condition. It's the belief that because you can't do what you used to do, you shouldn't do anything at all. Nothing could be further from the truth. As a...
The Butterfly Effect: How Small Steps Today Shape Your Health Tomorrow
There is an idea in science known as the Butterfly Effect. It suggests that something as small as the flap of a butterfly's wings can eventually influence weather patterns thousands of miles away. Whether or not that exact example occurs is less important than the...
Movement and Mental Health: Healing the Mind Through Movement
Movement is one of the most powerful yet underutilized tools for improving mental health. While counseling, medication, and other therapeutic approaches remain important treatments for anxiety and depression, research consistently demonstrates that physical activity...