Did destroying a Dundee ‘rage room’ help me to calm down?

I’m not an angry person.

I smile at dogs and babies, I do yoga, I cold plunge in the sea. I am zen, dammit.

But we live in 2024, in an age of crushing costs of living and constant, incessant communication. These are extremely trying times for even the most even-tempered.

So like any well-adjusted adult, I do have the occasional overwhelming urge to take this very laptop (or my phone) and smash it to tiny little smithereens.

Or to batter the car blocking me in with a golf club. Or knock the teeth out of the person talking loudly in a silent carriage.

Ok, maybe I am angry. But I’m not alone.

Violence is never the answer – but what if it was?

According to the British Association of Anger Management, 80% of people in the UK believe we are getting angrier as a country.

We have one of the highest levels of road rage in Europe, and 17% of us will feel angry at some point today.

And it’s ok to feel angry. The problem arises when anger bubbles over to rage, because rage can become violent. And violence is never OK.

But what if it was? What if there was a place you could go where violence wasn’t just allowed, it was the entire point?

This thought process (and let’s be real, a Google search) is what led me to the rage room.

It’s exactly what it says on the tin – a room where you can rage. It’s not going to fix the things that are making you angry.

But you can break stuff, kick, scream, chuck! Melt down or wild out without fear of hurting anyone.

Stuff the swimming and keep your calming therapies, this sounds like heaven to me.

So myself and my partner Steven head down to a Dundee ‘rage room’ to get some of our pent-up anger out.

Letting inner Vikings out at Axed & Enraged

Axed and Enraged, an axe-hurling and rage room studio set up in an old warehouse in Stobswell, is tucked away at the back of some nondescript units.

But inside, it’s an explosion of fun, Viking-inspired motifs and hard rock music.

We’re greeted by manager Blair, who is remarkably cheerful, upbeat and witty for a man surrounded by potentially deadly weapons.

“We started up independently in 2023,” Blair explains. “We want folk to come and let loose, have fun – but in a safe way where they can really rage and let go.”

There’s multiple axe-hurling lanes along one wall of the unit, and tucked up in the back corner is the rage room.

We’ve opted for the £100 ‘gold’ package, the second-top tier out of four, priced between £80 and £200.

It includes a tantalising array of “smashables” (plates, mugs, household bric-a-brac) set up along the walls, while a computer monitor winks at me from the floor, promising future catharsis.

On the other side of the room, my reflection stares back from a massive flatscreen TV, gleaming oh so breakably. A sturdy podium sits bang in the centre.

My long fuse is already twitching at the thought of finally getting to blow.

Don’t do a ‘rage room’ if you’re mad at your partner…

But safety first! Blair gets us well kitted out in fetching boiler suits, cut-resistant gloves, balaclavas, protective vests and goggle helmets.

The only thing not supplied is shoes. I’m well prepared for stamping on various shards with my platform Dr Martens, but I’d be wary of wearing thinner soles given what we’re about to do.

He goes on to give us a run down of the rules, which are basically: don’t hurt the room itself, and don’t hurt one another.

We sign a waiver “in case you decide to kill each other”. So this is love…

And finally, it’s time to rage.

‘For the first time in my life, I break something on purpose’

We get to request songs and control the music, or else give over to Blair’s curated heavy rock playlist. I ask to start us off with one of my favourite rage tracks – Kiss With A Fist by Florence and The Machine.

Steven only looks a little bit scared. We pick up our weapons.

Ever the gent, he lets me pick first. I eye up my choices – golf club, sledgehammer, one-handed bat, crowbar, or a comically enormous baseball bat.

Naturally, I start with the big bat, though later find I favour the golf club. I select a porcelain biscuit jar from the box of ‘smashables’ and set it on the podium.

Setting my feet, I draw back my swing. And for the first time in my life, I break something on purpose.

The jar explodes in a shower of shards the moment the bat makes contact. It doesn’t even have the chance to hit the breeze blocks on the other side of the room.

I turn to Steven, and his wide eyes mirror mine.

Here. We. Go.

Rage room let me kill work stress – literally

For the next 30 minutes, we go absolutely daft.

Volleying the smashables off the podium makes me squeal like a giddy child who’s up to mischief. It’s so fun.

But the screens are next level.

As I take the bat repeatedly to the computer screen, watching its blank face shatter and the switchboard slip out, I feel a twisted satisfaction. I’ve killed you, work stress.

Steven particularly enjoys melting an “unbreakable” metal hard-drive in half with the crowbar, while I frisbee some plates to their demise, channelling some Betty Draper hysteria.

We save the gigantic telly for last, primal screaming as we gleefully turn it into something that was formerly a TV.

When we exit the room half an hour later, we’re as out of breath as we are energised.

I feel a rush of endorphins from the exertion and emotionally, I’m on a total high.

But Blair says this part can go differently for everyone.

Unleash your rage at your own risk

“We’ve had people break down in the room,” he says, explaining that letting the rage out can sometimes trigger long-repressed emotions below. “It’s healthy, crying and screaming it out.

“If people get too distressed, we go in and just hang out with them, or bring them out for a chat.”

He even recalls one customer, a teacher, who got really into it, before becoming upset and scared by her own capacity for violence.

“She didn’t know she had it in her,” Blair says.

It seems there’s two schools of thought on rage rooms in terms of mental health.

One is that they’re cathartic and offer short-term relief from stress by allowing people to express anger in a safe environment.

The other is that they are ineffective because they encourage revelling in anger instead of addressing the cause of it.

We leave feeling pretty buoyant, but the next day, Steven says he actually feels more aggro than usual – like he “unleashed the beast”.

And though there’s little research on the effects of rage rooms and mental health, experts have said this may actually be a common consequence.

I’m the opposite. I’m unusually cheerful for the next few days and feel I’ve released some tension.

My editor even remarks: “What’s different? You’re all calm and zen.”

See? I told you – I’m just not an angry person.