Exercise for a Traumatic Breakup: Experience and Benefits

A few minutes before the modern dance class began, I felt it was important to level set some expectations with the teacher. “Just so you know, the last time I was in dance, I was dressed like a tiger and pulled another girl’s tail off during our Father’s Day recital. Not surprisingly, I was not invited back. Also, I was 7 years old,” I said sheepishly.

The teacher, as full of effortless grace while standing still as she was when moving, nodded in understanding and assured me this was an all-levels class, also joking that our lack of costumes may help me resist the temptation to mess with other dancers. Then she asked: “What made you decide to come back?”

“I have no idea,” I replied. But I actually did—the answer was just too long and complicated for a pre-class chat. Simply put, I was hoping to change my post-breakup brain, and finding that the more unfamiliar and unexpected an activity was, the greater impact it had on my healing.

My restarting point

The dance class was just one of many fresh physical efforts I’d made since navigating through the breakup of a nearly 14-year relationship. This wasn’t the kind of “grew apart, but still friends” ending we all hope to have; instead, it was a betrayal-packed, gut-wrenching, burn-to-the-ground type of finale that led to me making a long Taylor Swift playlist to marinate in on the way to therapy.

Talking helped a great deal, along with reading one zillion books about grief, emotional resilience, and empowerment. But at a certain point, words just weren’t working as well as they first did. What began to pull me out of the pit of burning memories was movement—and the more uncomfortable, the better.

In addition to the dance class, I took up paddleboarding, then snowshoeing when the lake near me in Minnesota froze over. I tried indoor rock climbing, then switched to outdoor climbing in an old quarry, followed by ice climbing that left scrapes in my cheeks from falling chunks of ice. After buying a VR headset, I spent hours in the virtual realm smashing floating blocks and learning the difference between an uppercut and a right hook.

Drawn to hybrid-style classes, I did PiYo, bootcamp HIIT, natural movement that involved lots of crawling, and plenty of yoga sculpt, joking with friends that it combines “the worst of both yoga and strength training, then throws in cardio for more trauma bonding between students.” My ridiculously fit and much younger nephew challenged me to a Tough Mudder, and I responded with: Game on.

“When you do something that wakes you up in a new way—and that could be climbing a mountain or knitting a sweater—you’re reinforcing that idea of self-reliance and trust in yourself.” —Naomi Bernstein, PsyD

With every exercise refresh, I felt awkward and uncoordinated, and sometimes a little freaked out that I’d fall or get injured. I’d wake up with sore muscles in places I’d never even thought about before (hello, gluteal hamstring attachment) but then start researching kettlebells after a morning yoga session. Often, I’d laugh at myself, especially after a particularly clumsy moment, but I didn’t quit—because it didn’t take long for me to realize it was all working.

Moving in these different ways not only helped me cut down on ruminating about the relationship—which had been a huge daily challenge—but it also began shifting my perception of myself. Rather than the broken, sad, angry, and rejected person I’d struggled to drag through every day, I was becoming stronger and moving forward, both literally and figuratively. Despite frequent stumbling, I began to learn how to stand up faster and with more force, and with each day—and every new, weird fitness pick—I was changing my brain as much as my body.

The healing benefits of play

When I look at my exercise efforts as a whole, most involved a degree of controlled risk, joyful movement, and progressive mastery. All of these are elements of play, and although research¹ often highlights the advantages of frequent play in children, those benefits apply to adults as well. Those include better emotional regulation, discovering new passions, building self-confidence, and creating a foundation of empowerment and agency.

“Mastery, in particular, is a big part of getting over a breakup whether you’re the one who ended the relationship or not,” says Sarah Gundle, PsyD, a psychologist who specializes in relationships and life transitions. “When you become better at something, and that includes physical activity, it improves your ability to become mentally flexible. If it’s an activity that comes with a sense of lightness and enthusiasm, it can be even more profound.”

That’s true for kids making it across the monkey bars for the first time, but it also applies to grown-ups. Despite the fact that I fell into every water obstacle during the Tough Mudder, tromped across the dance floor while others floated, and lie panting like a puppy on the snow after slogging through icy drifts during snowshoeing, I did begin to feel two distinct sensations that had eluded me for years: I was getting better at what I tried, and I was actually having fun doing it.

The more novel the activity, the better

Another aspect that felt like play was the newness of each choice. How do you even hold an ice climbing axe, much less use it to propel yourself upward? What’s a “rond de jambe” ballet step and why can everyone else seem to do it so beautifully? Do you know that tensing your muscles while you’re on a paddleboard leads to epic foot cramps?

“After a breakup, it’s easy to shut down and hibernate, and stick with what you know is comforting, but that can lead to feeling stuck eventually,” says Naomi Bernstein, PsyD, psychologist and co-host of the Betches Media’s Oversharing podcast, which focuses on relationship challenges. “Also, it’s possible that in a relationship that’s ending, there’s a feeling of stagnation, both with each other and in your own identity as part of that couple. Finding a healthy way to bring novelty into the experience takes you off autopilot.”

Also, you tend to become better at paying attention to your body, as well as focusing in general, she adds. These are essential for providing a feeling of forward momentum and balance, and especially building self-confidence—an attribute that definitely became depleted in my breakup.

“Many people feel that they have to learn to trust themselves in a different way after a breakup, especially if the relationship was not empowering,” Bernstein says. “When you do something that wakes you up in a new way—and that could be climbing a mountain or knitting a sweater—you’re reinforcing that idea of self-reliance and trust in yourself.”

Movement isn’t just a way to navigate through a post-breakup world, I discovered—it’s also an incredible way to honor yourself and find new ground when you need it most.

Recovery as a metaphor

In the same way that movement propelled me forward literally and figuratively, so did recovery time. Research shows² that you don’t build muscle when you’re in the midst of strength training—you’re actually creating strategic damage to the muscles during exercise. It’s during recovery that those muscle fibers repair themselves in a way that makes them better able to handle stress.

The same can be said about breakups and other emotional trauma, Gundle says. Thoughtful, restorative, and nourishing recovery efforts can strengthen resilience, both mentally and physically.

“When you come back after a period of recovery, you tend to have a different perspective,” she adds. “You often feel a greater sense of power and control. Those are attributes you may not feel in general after a breakup, so finding a way to build those is crucial.”

To be honest, I began my constellation of new exercise efforts simply as a way to distract myself, because I needed to stop revisiting all the conversations and events that happened not just during the breakup, but for over a decade before it. To revisit the dance class moment, I kept pulling off my own little tiger tail. But what started as a diversion ended up as the one thing I didn’t anticipate: healing.

Movement isn’t just a way to navigate through a post-breakup world, I discovered—it’s also an incredible way to honor yourself and find new ground when you need it most.