It became a matter of death or life for Tom

STRANGE as it sounds, but the day he tried to take his own life was, says Tom Pavey, probably the day he started to live again.

"It chills me now to think about it," he says, speaking softly as he casts his mind back to that dark place when, after a slow, confusing slide into clinical depression, he finally couldn't face life any longer.

"It was a very traumatic experience. But as much as you can come to a positive conclusion from something that was really bad, I now know that getting to that low was what started my recovery."

Today, Tom is upbeat and firmly in control of the deep set darkness that once engulfed him. He's turned his life from the overwhelming negatives that threatened to consume him into a stream of positives.

It's partly, he agrees, down to medical help and support from various therapies: learning to relax, to talk about his feelings and to recognise the often surprisingly confusing and complex symptoms of depression.

But it's also largely down to something that's free, that he can tap into whenever he feels the need and that, quite simply, makes him feel pretty good.

This summer he'll join hundreds of other men, running 10K across Glasgow's Bellahouston Park in a major event aimed at highlighting men's health issues and encouraging others to adopt a healthier, more active lifestyle.

Most people who take up running do it to get fit, improve their physical health and lose the spare tyre.

Tom did it to heal his troubled mind.

"Exercise gave me an immediate boost," he explains. "When I was wondering what had caused my depression and looking at whether it was a chemical imbalance of some kind, it made sense to do more exercise - by exercising I could improve my mood very quickly, by doing it as a matter of routine, it brought even more benefits.

"And then by having a goal to work towards - such as training for the 10K - it gave me something to aim towards."

Exercise is known to release "feel good" chemicals in the brain to provide an instant uplifting hit. But its role in helping people with depression is manifold, from boosting their self-esteem to simply distracting them from their negative thoughts, improving sleep and releasing pent up stress and frustrations.

But exercise of any kind was the last thing on Tom's mind as he slid, unknown to him, into the black hole of a deep depression around five years ago.

"I didn't really know much about mental health issues, and I didn't think I was 'the type' to get depression," he admits.

"But there were days when I could barely get myself to move. Getting up in the morning and going to bed at night was taking up all my thought processes. I was in a daze and I wasn't looking after myself physically.

"I was living a very dysfunctional life, I put on weight and I became unhealthy.

"I thought my problems were purely physical."

In fact, he was experiencing something many young Scots have to cope with - depression affects one in five young people between 18 and 34. Figures for last year show an increase in the overall number of people taking antidepressants - the number of prescriptions for the drugs rose by 7.6 per cent.

Young men are particularly at risk, their reluctance to discuss their feelings and concerns over how they might be perceived combine to create barriers to seeking help. Suicide is the biggest killer of young men in Scotland, three out of every four suicide victims is male.

In Tom's case, depression crept into his life and took such a firm grip that he wasn't even aware of what was happening to him.

"I just slipped into it," he recalls. "There wasn't a big traumatic event, it just happened.

"I was probably predisposed to depression either by personality traits or genetics or chemicals in the brain, but in any case I got into a kind of addictive cycle of negative thinking and dysfunctional living. And things fell apart."

Tom, who works as a charity events organiser and lives off Broughton Street, was in his early 20s and studying for a degree in psychology at Edinburgh University at the time. "Being a student meant I was able to miss lectures or not be very sociable and no-one thought much about it," he explains. "Often people's university lifestyles are fragmented and flaky.

"I was away from home in the Borders, I didn't have close friends or family nearby and, in any case, I cut myself off from them. It didn't happen overnight, it was a very slow and gradual process."

Tom, 27, wasn't aware the odd physical symptoms he was experiencing - blurred vision, sleeplessness, headaches and a sensations of "things spinning around" - could possibly be linked to increasing feelings of depression.

Eventually he began to self-harm and, at his lowest ebb, attempted suicide. Horrific as that situation was, it kick-started a sequence of care that has helped him cope with his illness - including his introduction to the benefits of exercise.

"I was always interested in sport but a real feature of my depression was that I just didn't look after myself physically," he explains.

"But now I do sport on a whole new level. I have found that just going out for a walk can give you a boost. If I'm feeling I'm getting into a low, I find a way to exercise to help life my mood."

Running the 10K is as much about keeping depression at bay as a physical work-out for his body, he adds.

And it doesn't end when the race is over.

"Recovering is about feeling good, but also about keeping going with the things that you make you feel good.

"Recovering, not recover," he adds.

"It doesn't have an end point, it's about adjusting. It's not about getting back to where you were, it's about growing as a person."

Run for your life

Running brings a raft of mental, physical and social benefits.

It is among the best aerobic exercises for physical conditioning of the heart and lungs. It helps ensure the efficient flow of blood and oxygen throughout the body - proven to help to decrease the risk of a heart attack.

Running and other types of exercise are known to relieve stress. Depression Alliance Scotland says depression is less common in people who exercise regularly, and exercisers seem, at least partly, to be protected from future episodes of depression.

The 10K for Men, organised by the Men's Health Forum Scotland, was launched in 2006 to engage men in physical activity and promote wellbeing all year round.

It is held on Father's Day - this year on 19th June - and brings to a climax Men's Health Week.

For details on how to take part, go to www.mhfs.org.uk