A New Way to Relieve Stress at Work

Have you ever come out of work feeling like you want to hit something or someone? Work related stress is unfortunately common place, particularly in offices today and this is usually for a number of reasons. Work related stress usually arises when office tasks of various types exceed the ability of a particular office worker. Sitting at your office desk or on your office chair all day can also be a form of stress, but in any case work related stress is a problem in most companies.

When relieving office stress flying off the handle and going on a destructive rampage isn’t usually the socially acceptable way of dealing with the problem. This is where the “Anger Room” comes in. Located in the Dallas strip mall, a once shop has been used as a place for disgruntled American office workers can go and act violently in an effort to relieve their built up anger. Rooms are filled with “stuff” this includes TVs, office furniture, office chairs, glassware etc… for customers to smash.

The way in which the Anger Room works is that the rooms are filled with donated or found items from garage sales, dumpsters or recently refurbished offices for example. You then turn up an specify how much time in a room that you want. The options are 5 minutes “I need a break” session that costs $25, 15 minute “lash out” is $45 and for the full 25 minute session of “total demolition” will set you back $75.

Grant V. Ziegler in the Irving, Texas, News-Register commented on the Anger Room, "Five minutes may not seem like a long time, but I was so exhausted from smashing everything after four minutes, I couldn't even finish my full session."

The idea for this was dreamt up by Donna Alexander when she was 16 "I felt there needed to be a place for people to put holes in walls and release pent-up aggression safely without public humiliation or repercussions". When she moved to Dallas in 2002 she decided to test the idea in her garage and it took off; "I had strangers showing up at my house, so I said I have to find a real legit place."