Harbour of Hope

When you are lucky enough to get the chance to peer out upon the mighty Atlantic from the vantage point of lovely Peggy’s Cove, it is certainly a hopeful view. The bracing ocean air fills your lungs like only Canadian coastlines can, and you feel at one with nature, forgetting time and place, if only for a moment.

Recently I returned from a conference in Halifax called Harbour of Hope: Health and Physical Literacy sponsored by Physical and Health Education Canada. I really haven’t shared here what my newly adopted publishing house actually publishes. Thompson Publishing is proudly situated in the Health and Physical Education niche and has been supporting Health and PE teachers with resources for several decades now. For me it represents a home-coming. Most of my elementary and secondary school friends will remember me as a gym rat who could not get enough of sports of all sorts. In fact, my Mum even made a backpack for me when I was 10 or so that was lovingly stitched with “I Am a Sports Nut.” (I can’t believe I remembered that and now wished I had saved it). Well, my last 18 years in publishing has been largely focussed on Social Studies and I have been busy exercising my intellect rather than, well….me.

I cannot tell you how lucky I feel to get back to my roots just in time to remember that a sound mind is best built within a sound body!  Just this past week the Globe and Mail ran a three part series on our current youth health crisis looking at the detrimental effects of childhood obesity on not only our health care but also on our education system.  You can find the series here.  For an even closer look at the positive effects that physical activity has on the brain, please check out John Ratey’s book, Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain where he presents the research behind how physical activity can help you beat stress, elevate your mood, and sharpen your intellect, just by elevating your heart rate. Pretty potent stuff! If you have children, teach children, or simply want to know why exercise makes you feel so darn good, please give this book a read!

Now I must run…well, walk fast!