When even having it all doesn't seem to help

With frightening prescience, 24 hours before Gary Speed was found dead yesterday morning by his wife Louise, fellow footballer Stan Collymore wrote the following blog post:

"Suicidal thoughts. 

Thankfully i've not got to that part yet,and in my last 10 years only once or twice has this practical reality entered my head,and practicality its is,unpalatable the thought may be to many.

Why a practicality? Well,if your mind is empty,your brain ceases to function,your body is pinned to the bed,the future is a dark room,with no light,and this is your reality,it takes a massive leap of faith to know that this time next week,life could be running again,smiling,my world big and my brain back as it should be.So what do some do? They don't take the leap of faith,they address a practical problem with a practical solution to them,and that is taking their own life.And sadly,too many take that route out of this hell."

Collymore - much pilloried for his sexual demons - had to endure even more mockery from his own manager when he announced, 12 years ago, that he suffered from depression: "How can you be depressed when you're on £20,000 a week?", was the apparent voice of support.

The trouble is depression is far too often dismissed in much the same way, especially for men. "Get a grip", they are told. It is a tragic fact in its own right that, while women are statistically more likely to seek treatment for depression, men are more than three times as likely to take their own lives, often for a condition only they know they are dealing with.

We may never know, nor should we want to know what it was that took Gary Speed to take his own life. What we can know was that, at 42 and with an exemplary playing career behind him, a promising managerial career unfolding before him, a beautiful wife, two healthy teenage sons, and the requisite footballer's comfortable lifestyle, he was - on the outside at least - an unlikely candidate to commit suicide.

Even on Saturday - shortly before he died - Speed had appeared on the BBC's Football Focus as a studio pundit, demonstrating his solid knowledgeability of the game alongside former Leeds United teammate Gary McAllister. 

Dan Walker, the show's host, spent a few hours with Speed throughout the day and, amongst all the many comments posted online about the Welshman's suicide some hours later, had as much reason as any to be shocked by what happened.

"After Focus we recorded a 10-minute piece with Gary talking about Wales' qualifying campaign for the next World Cup," Walker wrote on his BBC blog. "He spoke with passion about the fixtures and desire to see success. His hope was that the upturn in form would see his team playing in front of full stadia again. He joked about Team GB and how Scotland would be an easy game, McAllister giggled. Those words and hopes for the future seem so poignant now. There was certainly no hint of any troubles or any indication of what was going to happen a few hours later."

As is the modern way when tragedy strikes, Twitter becomes, perhaps, an over-inflated barometer of grief. The avalanche of tributes tweeted yesterday came from across the worlds of sport, showbusiness stars and even politics. 

Few of the posts reflected any deep personal relationship with Gary Speed, but the volume of largely unqualified sentiment reflected the utter  shock of news that a young football manager, who seemingly had everything going for him, could choose to exit this world so suddenly. 

The sight of Aston Villa goalkeeper Shay Given, a close friend and former teammate of Speed's, unable to compose himself before his match yesterday against Swansea City, summed up the genuine, wrenching disbelief that was felt across football.

In fact, not just football. The vast majority of tributes commented on Speed's professionalism and the bewilderment over what had happened, highlighting the apparent contentment of his life, his lifestyle and his career.

Stan Collymore's earlier post underlined the fact that depression is a prison cell with few visitors. In so many people, but especially men, it goes unspoken for the very fear of mockery, of loss of respect at work, even the risk of it undermining personal relationships.

Without wishing to trivialize the condition, many mental health professionals praised the depiction of fictional Mob boss Tony Soprano's depression in The Sopranos as a pivotal story arc in the show. Dr. Glen Gabbard of Baylor College of Medicine in Texas wrote in his book The Psychology of the Sopranos: "I can't tell you how many of my colleagues have told me, that a man has come to their office seeking therapy because if a big, tough guy like Tony Soprano can get something out of it, maybe he can." The fact is, yes you can. 

The tragedy, however, of Gary Speed's death reminded me of the often misquoted comment by legendary Liverpool manager Bill Shankly - "Football's not a matter of life and death, it's more important than that". In reality, Shankly used the line in a TV interview when asked about his dedication to the game: "I regret [its impact on my family] very much. Somebody said: 'Football's a matter of life and death to you'. I said, 'Listen it's more important than that.' And my family's suffered. They've been neglected."

Yesterday we learned that football is not a matter of life and death at all. 

Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now

You know me: likes a laugh. Why else would this blog have covered death, war and football so copiously over the last year or so? So, to keep things light and breezy, let me turn your attention to depression.

A couple of years ago the excellent BBC 6 Music radio station drew up the definitive Top 20 list of songs to listen to while depressed. The station's intention was to highlight, rather than mock, the depressive condition, but I'm not altogether sure the final chart did anyone any favours.

Topping these particular pops were (in at No.1) The Smiths' I Know It's Over, followed by REM's torturously whiny Everybody Hurts and, at No.3, that well-stocked barrel of chuckles, Comfortably Numb. It was the original version of Pink Floyd's opus of gloom of course. The Scissor Sisters' cover might have had a more uplifting effect.

The reason for dragging all this up now is that a research project in Finland has discovered that music may actually help people with depression. A study of 79 sufferers by the University of Jyväskylä found greater progress in the treatment of their condition when exposed to music therapy than those undergoing conventional treatments alone.

Professor Christian Gold, who lead the Jyväskylä study, thinks that music therapy might offer a unique solution for people with depression. "Music therapy has specific qualities that allow people to express themselves and interact in a non-verbal way," he says, "even in situations when they cannot find the words to describe their inner experiences."

"Music-making is social, pleasurable and meaningful," British mental health specialist Dr Mike Crawford commented about the Jyväskylä research in the British Journal of Psychiatry. "It has been argued that music making engages people in ways that words may simply not be able to," he added. "These results suggest that [music] can improve the mood and general functioning of people with depression."

It is well known that a vigorous workout will give release to endorphins (not sure what the endorphin's collective noun is - I'm tempted to offer 'pod'), leaving the excerciser out of breath but on a natural high and with a grin fixed somewhere between Jack Nicholson's Joker and the average male at the moment of arrival.

This goes a long way to explain why exercise is regarded as one of the best aides for coping with depression, amongst many other conditions. Music therapy has, for a long time, been an effective recovery aid for both mental and physical trauma. A few years ago I had the great privilege of visiting Nordoff Robbins, the music therapy charity, and saw for myself the cognitive improvement people with a range of disabilities were enjoying as a result of interaction with music.

So could music really treat those struggling - and I use that word with caution - with depression? Music has always been able to capture the human condition and wring it dry. The blues probably wouldn't exist if it wasn't for downtrodden tales of loneliness and romantic failure. Why else would lovelorn middle-class white boys have fallen for the music of the American South's immigrant underclass?

But is it music itself or the choice that makes the difference? One man's tonic might be Leonard Cohen while another's is Lady Gaga. My own spirits will be lifted instantly by an outing for Solid Air or What's Going On in their entirety, or simply the opening chords of the Rolling Stones' Monkey Man. By the same token, don't count on anything flushed through the televisual sewer that is The X-Factor to raise more than a dull, nauseated pain.

©2003 Arsenio Corôa

One of the joys of having a decent-sized music collection - or, simply, a fully paid-up Spotify account - is the ability to match music to mood. It's a theme explored superbly in the fascinating book This Is Your Brain On Music by San Francisco-born overachiever Daniel J Levitin (I say 'overachiever' out of profound envy: Levitin is a real-life version of Buckaroo Banzai - prominent neuroscientist, psychologist, record producer, sound engineer, music consultant, musician and writer).

In his book, Levitin opened up "...the intersection of psychology and neurology..." as it relates to music, meaning, enjoyment - and emotion. In particular, he drew attention to the commonality of purpose with which advertising executives, movie directors, military marching bands and lullabying new monthers use music or song to evoke a certain emotional response.

Levitin points out how an advertising creative will give the Ford Focus some gravitas by bedding a 30-second spot for it with an operatic excerpt; the film maker, on the other hand, will use music as part of the narrative, a practice dating back to the silent era when pianists and organists accompanied the screen from the orchestra pit. Think about Jaws and John Williams' tension-building theme, or the pivotal application of Barber's Adagio For Strings in Platoon. For a master of the brilliantly evocative soundtrack, listen to Michael Mann's eclectic, hand-picked choice of music in Heat, Collateral and, don't laugh, the original TV series of Miami Vice.

Levitin's own research identified how the brain responds differently to variations in rhythm, tempo, pitch and timbre. This is something you can easily put to the test: load up your preferred MP3 device with your favourite songs, head to the gym and see how your effort peaks and troughs as your workout soundtrack varies.

I know from personal experience that my response to London Calling and Led Zep's Immigrant Song differed dramatically to the random inclusion of a more mellow track by Richie Havens, but avoid doing - as I did - and including Wings' Live And Let Die on the playlist: the Nordic cross-trainer didn't know what was going on as your sweating correspondent peaked and troughed between the song's frantic rock and stretches of cod-reggae. Even now, I think the machine might have been mistaken into thinking its guest was having some sort episode...