How do you deal with stress? In Nigeria, swinging a sledgehammer in a ‘rage room’ helps

How do you cope with stress? In Lagos, Nigeria’s largest metropolis, persons are discovering their reset button in a “rage room” the place they pay to smash electronics and furnishings with a sledgehammer as a break from the worst cost-of-living disaster in a technology.

The Shadow Rage Room, apparently the primary of its sort in Nigeria, provides “a secure area” for individuals to set free pent-up feelings, in keeping with Dr. James Babajide Banjoko, the founder and a doctor. The concept, he mentioned, got here in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 after he misplaced his mom and struggled with work.

For 7,500 naira ($5), clients are left alone with protecting gear and a sledgehammer or bat in a room for a 30-minute session with the gadgets which can be later recycled.

Times are powerful in Nigeria, a rustic of over 200 million individuals the place rising frustration amongst youths led to current mass protests through which a number of individuals had been killed by safety forces. The inflation fee has reached a 28-year-high of 33.4%, whereas the naira foreign money has fallen to report lows towards the greenback.

Mental well being providers stay overseas or unaffordable for a lot of in Africa’s most populous nation, the place 40% of residents reside under $2 per day.

The West African nation has fewer than 400 registered psychologists, in keeping with the Nigerian Association of Clinical Psychologists. That means one psychologist for about each half 1,000,000 individuals.

Even when remedy is offered, stigma stays a problem, NACP president Gboyega Emmanuel Abikoye mentioned in an interview.

Rage rooms aren’t essentially new in different elements of the world. There is not any documented proof of their psychological well being advantages past the momentary reduction that comes with venting your emotions, Abikoye mentioned.

Experts in Nigeria as a substitute see a rising want for extra long-term emotional help, particularly amongst younger individuals.

In Lagos, an overcrowded metropolis of about 20 million individuals and a magnet for these in search of higher alternatives, such wants are much more pronounced. Daily stressors embody site visitors jams infamous for trapping drivers and passengers on streets for hours in warmth and smog in one of many world’s most polluted cities.

Some Nigerians have turned to social media platforms like Tiktok as a approach to deal with stress. Some discover help in communities wherever they will, from the church or mosque to the health club.

And now there’s the trend room, which opens on weekends and is normally totally booked as much as two weeks forward, in keeping with Banjoko, the founder.

At the tip of 1 session of smashing, Olaribigbe Akeem, a current customer, got here out sweating however relieved and visibly glad.

“As a median Nigerian, you get to cope with so much day by day,” Akeem mentioned. “The anger has been piling up (and) as a substitute of venting on any individual, that is the most effective avenue for me, and I really feel so much renewed.”

Rage room guests additionally embody {couples} who wish to get one thing off their chest.

At instances, individuals are available for recreation however discover one thing extra.

“My favourite persons are people who … simply wish to strive it, and on the finish of the day, you see them, they break down, they cry, they change into very expressive,” Banjoko mentioned. He mentioned he typically refers them to remedy.

Dr. Maymunah Yusuf Kadiri, a Lagos-based psychiatrist, mentioned any profit from smashing issues is normally short-lived and cannot be a substitute for remedy.

There can be the chance of such a follow making somebody much less seemingly to make use of “wholesome coping methods,” she mentioned, and expressed concern that “repeated engagement … may reinforce aggressive tendencies.”

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At the trend room, some clients mentioned their issues really feel lighter solely till they go away and re-enter every day life.

But being weak with your self whereas inside, sledgehammer in hand, continues to be price it, mentioned Eka Stephanie Paul, an actor and TV host.

“Problem no dey end anyway,” she mentioned within the pidgin broadly spoken throughout Nigeria, acknowledging that the trend room is hardly a treatment. “But proper now, I really feel very mild.”

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