Student running for mental illness awareness

DEER LAKE - Wednesday afternoon, Wayne Cho ran through Deer Lake. Cho is on his way across the island as part of a cross-Canada run to raise awareness of anxiety and depression among Canadians.

Cho began his run in Cape Spear on May 23. His planned route will take him across roughly 8,400 kilometres in eight months.

The Toronto-based student has been concerned with the lack of awareness of anxiety and depression for some time, and credits his psychology text with opening his own eyes to his personal anxiety battle.

"If I didn't go back to study psychology," he said, "I probably would never have had a chance to find out."

Cho says that the text described symptoms that he suffered from and forced him to recognize an anxiety problem - although he has not been formally diagnosed.

"I had this intense worry in my stomach that something's going to go wrong and if something did go wrong, I couldn't get it out of my mind very easily," said Cho.

Realizing that many people never find out about their own illnesses, said Cho, prompted him to consider ways that he might raise awareness.

A cross-Canada run was a way to both raise awareness of the problems and promote part of a solution, said Cho, who controls his own anxiety through exercise. He claims that running daily not only leaves him with positive feelings, but also helps him to think more clearly. Not that it is a cure, said Cho, but it's something that helps.

"I realized the benefit of exercise for dealing with anxiety and depression," said Cho. "It's not a replacement for psychotherapy, but it's something that's accessible to everybody."

Of course Cho's run is much longer than what he might recommend to beginners looking to improve their mental health.

"You don't have to run a marathon to reap the benefits of exercise," he said.

A run across Canada may seem like a daunting task, but Cho says that he simply takes it one day at a time. Each of those days includes a goal of 42 kilometres of running, he said. The span is broken up into one run of 30 kilometres, followed by a break and some heavy hydrating. Then, it's back on the road to beat in another 12 kilometres.

Meeting people

In between these runs, along the way, Cho said that he has been and will be able to meet plenty of different people who have shared their own battles with anxiety and depression.

"I'm growing constantly by meeting people and sharing their experiences," said Cho, who has chronicled some of these encounters on his daily online blog.

While almost through with the island, Cho says that he has also received plenty of help so far and is very thankful. In fact, the help started on his very first day.

"I didn't know where Cape Spear was. I didn't know how to get there," said Cho, who wandered St. John's for some time before he decided to knock on a door to ask for help.
With that first door, Cho says that he met a St. John's man who offered to drive him to Cape Spear.

"He ended up driving 40-something kilometres for a total stranger," said Cho, who added that the man even let him use his shower once he returned to his parked RV.

After finishing his run, Cho plans to start yearly events all across the country that will continue to raise awareness of anxiety and depression.

"You see runs every year to raise money and awareness for cancer, but you don't see any runs for anxiety and depression," said Cho. "This is just a start. That's the only way you will bring people's attention and resources to address the problem."

Cho is accepting donations for his run and regional mental health associations through his website, but also says that he would prefer to see donations go directly to local mental health groups.

Updates on the run will be available through his website: www.crosscanadarun.com. Cho hopes to complete his run in Vancouver in December.