YVONNE Haughan was forced to quit her job as a teacher after 35 years when her depression took a stranglehold on her life.

But after years on anti-depressants, the 57-year-old, from Booth Road, Stacksteads, has begun to see light at the end of the tunnel - and has even set up her own home-based floral display company, Aquilegia.

The reason for the turn-around, she is convinced, is exercise.

Yvonne, who used to work at Northern Primary School, Burnley Road, Bacup, was recently taken off anti-depressants after three years in favour of a regime of fitness and counselling.

She said: "I am so glad my doctor referred me to the gym as well as the tablets and a course of counselling.

"The exercise makes you feel so much better. And you are often with others who have been referred there which helps by talking to people in the same situation.

"But it does worry me that it depends on your GP whether you get this much alternative help.

"Thankfully mine did. But I'm sure not all do but they definitely should. I'm sure it helped me recover."

The Mental Health Foundation has set up a year long campaign, Up and Running?, amid growing concerns about the over-prescribing of anti-depressants.

It acted after a report found that a supervised programme of exercise on prescription could be as effective as anti-depressants in treating mild or moderate depression.

But the Foundation revealed many GPs did not believe exercise was an effective treatment, despite recommendations from the Government's Chief Medical Officer.

It said GPs were still turning to anti-depressants before anything else, revealing only five per cent of GPs used exercise as one of their top three treatments.

Seventy-eight per cent of GPs have prescribed an anti-depressant in the last three years despite believing that an alternative treatment might have been more appropriate and 57 per cent admit they are over-prescribed, according the survey.

A poll of 200 GPs carried out by the MHF found that only five per cent used exercise as one of their three most common treatment responses to depression.

In contrast, 92 per cent of GPs used anti-depressants as one of their three most common treatment responses.

The survey also found that 78 per cent of doctors had prescribed an anti-depressant in the last three years, despite believing an alternative treatment might have been more appropriate.

Three-quarters of those doctors said they had done so because a suitable alternative, such as counselling, was not available.

The Foundation has called for the Government to put £20 million towards promoting exercise referral -- five per cent of the yearly amount currently spent on anti-depressents -- a figure that has risen by more than 2,000 per cent over the last 12 years.

Dr Andrew McCulloch, chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation, said: "Patients with mild or moderate depression asking their GPs for help are currently being denied an effective treatment option - exercise referral.

"Society needs to be educated about the benefits of exercise in treating mild or moderate depression

"And GPs need to be made aware that exercise referral is available."