Can Exercise Help With Grief? How Working Out May Support Healing

It is a scientific fact that working up a sweat can instantly boost your mood, thanks to the surge of feel-good endorphins that are released when exercising. Some people are applying this same principle to working through their grief. Here is a look at how people are looking to exercise as a tool to deal with grief.

Grief, Sweat & Tears is Bringing Bereaved People Together to Process Emotions

If you are dealing with grief, you may want to consider hitting the gym. While nothing can take away the pain of losing a loved one or any other type of grief situation, science clearly supports the theory that working up a sweat can improve your mental health. As such, some gyms are offering classes or programs specifically designed to employ exercise as a means of grief support.

The group Grief, Sweat & Tears is leading the effort of leaning on traditional exercise to help people overcome grief. Class instructor Sylvia Borowska recently told CNN about her class at Liftonic gym. Borowska said that most of the class participants were crying as they went through the exercises as they processed their sadness at the same time that they were exerting themselves physically.

According to Borowska, she instructed the participants to pick up a heavy weight and visualize it on their back. She told the class to "Do as many deadlifts as you can for the amount of time that the person you’ve lost has passed. That can represent either the months or years you’ve been grieving.” She went on to say that she told her students, “Grief is heavy, but we’re stronger than that, so let’s prove to ourselves and each other how strong we are."

Grief, Sweat & Tears is a community-driven program that hosts fitness classes throughout New York City intended to help people navigate their grief after losing a loved one. The initiative was founded in December of 2025 and has helped roughly 400 people since that time. Participants in the classes work out together and then share stories about the people that they have lost.

The organization's website notes that they are not a support group or structured therapy. Instead, the group is designed to provide a safe place for people to share movement in a way that facilitates a healthy emotional release. The group also says that it wants to bring people together to connect with others who understand what they are going through.

How Exercise Can Support the Grief Process

Grief, Sweat & Tears is one of several organizations that use fitness spaces as a place for grievers to be together. While each group differs slightly, the common goal is to lean into the mental health benefits of physical activity while processing hard and complex feelings.

Experts from the Cochrane Library published a review earlier this year that lent more support to the belief that exercise may be as effective as medication for the treatment of depression. Dr. Stephen Mateka, medical director of psychiatry at Inspira Health, told NPR that “Exercise can help improve neurotransmitter function, like serotonin as well as dopamine and endorphins." Mateka went on to say that "there is certainly overlap between exercise and how antidepressants offer relief.”  

The recent study aligned with results of a 2023 report that found that physical activity can also be used as a tool to promote resilience and to guard against some of the negative effects that come with suffering a traumatic loss. This study found that grieving people who exercised more were less likely to experience chronic depression than those who were sedentary.

Grief expert Mary-Frances O'Connor told the Washington Post that "a lot of what is happening in grieving is actually not about verbal processing." O'Connor said that exercise can give the bereaved a sense of urgency and control when they feel as if their life is otherwise spiraling. According to O'Connor, "Those are the things that I think help return us to community life, which is a vital and really difficult and under-discussed aspect of grieving."

While exercise can certainly serve as an important piece of the healing process, experts caution that it should not be the only tool to deal with hard emotions. Therapy, leaning on loved ones, and self-care are all vital components of dealing with grief and the associated trauma.

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