Excerpt from The Gospel of Wellness by Rina Raphael, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Toomey created this new kind of workout after realizing she loved the meditative component of yoga as a way of connecting with her breathing but also craved the endorphin rush of cardio routines. The result is a mix of quiet reflection with bursts of fast movement. Sound is another component. She noticed that whether or not she vocalized what was bottled up inside made a difference in how she felt. Getting loud—really loud—was a catharsis of sorts.

Toomey built a cult following around this unique, visceral form of exercise—if you could even call it strictly exercise. Is it meditation? Athletic vocalization? Calorie-burning primal scream therapy? Celebrities like Naomi Watts swear by the $35 sessions. Ask New Yorkers to describe The Class, and they'll call it "a brain-body release," "an emotional workout," and "a spiritually orgasmic exercise." One participant simply explained it by saying, "Sometimes you just need to yell, ya know?"

I definitely did know.

For almost two years, I was a regular at the L.A. outpost of The Class, surrounded by several dozen women who, by all accounts, seemed to have it together.

During one session, The Class took it up a notch. It was the Sunday following the Supreme Court confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh, who had earlier been accused of sexual misconduct by a former classmate, California professor Christine Blasey Ford. Liberal-leaning women tended to view the proceedings in a certain way: they saw a woman take the stand, be doubted by the public, then be torn apart. Acknowledging the week's news, the instructor led the entire room in a sing-along of the 4 Non Blondes song "What's Up." Participants thrust their arms forward and back—rowing without an oar—as the lyrics demanded,

And I scream from the top of my lungs

What's going on?

The room erupted in song, women shouting at the top of their lungs, turning their faces to the ceiling as if to summon the heavens to rescue them. Some pounded their fists in the air as though they were punching ghosts. "I pray every single day for revolution," they bellowed along with the 1993 hit single. The emotion was palpable. It was unlike anything I had ever seen, perhaps only rivaled by the kind of Christian revival faith healings I've seen depicted in movies.

After the class, I approached a few of the women about the intensity we had just witnessed. The Class skews older millennial—women in their thirties and forties, many of them moms or midcareer professionals. The atmosphere felt unreal, certainly not the norm for a nine a.m. workout class. "[The confirmation was] the last straw," said one woman in line at the studio's café. "We are broken camels."

How could it be, I wondered, that so many "privileged" women were so exasperated? What was going on? This was much larger than just my own anxiety. A simmering cauldron of frustration had come to a boiling point, and somehow it was exploding on a pastel-colored yoga mat. It couldn't just be the political situation inspiring such an outpouring. These women had evidently come to class to express their grievances, and no amount of sage was going to clear up that kind of toxic energy. But when and why did squats and burpees, among other wellness activities, become therapy?

Drowning in Stress: Not Enough Time or Support to "Have it All"

Women are overwhelmed. I hear it over and over and over again from folks across the country, on all sides of the political and social divide. They can be stressed by PTA meetings and ever-rising childcare costs or by a never-ending stream of work coupled with growing piles of laundry. They can be single, drowning in student loan debts and unbelievable housing prices. They might be college students, 40 percent of whom report being so stressed and depressed that "it's difficult to function," according to the American College Health Association. Or perhaps they're graduates hitting LinkedIn's virtual pavement (with little success) or moms struggling to find the time to "sneak in" a shower. Expectations continue to mount, yet they're barely able to tread the rough waters.

Excerpted from The Gospel of Wellness by Rina Raphael. Copyright © 2022 by Rina Raphael. Excerpted by permission of Henry Holt and Company. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.