The Rage Room

Rough day? Time to visit the Rage Room, where destruction is encouraged

Is this really the best way to deal with feelings of frustration?


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Article here: http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2015/aug/12/rage-room-toronto?CMP=fb_gu

Do we evolve out of our barbaric past? Or, is the need for dominance so buried within us that we need SOME outlet?

This reminds me of a M*A*S*H* episode when their psychologist friend Dr. Sidney Friedman comes for a visit. The entire camp seems on edge and Colonel Potter can't figure out why or how to fix it. At one point two of them are supposed to burn some infected uniforms and it turns into a full on bon-fire! Colonel Potter goes to stop them but Sidney says that it might be just what they need so he lets it go. After that everyone was better.

Neither the bon-fire on M*A*S*H* nor this Rage Room sound like the most constructive use of time and energy, but every once in a while I can see the merit in it. Maybe not if you have a specific problem that you need to solve (your time and energy would be best suited to solving that problem), but when you just feel the need to let off some steam it could be good. Plus who hasn't wanted to recreate that scene from Office Space? :laugh:

What really makes a weapon is the way its wielded I guess, so this, tempered with compassion could be a valuable exercise, but probably a one off and quite short as its easy to learn to override anger with compassion - as destruction is the easy way out of a problem. Without compassion though, it would seem just exercising aggression and dominance - not a particularly useful 'muscle' to exercise on its own unless its refining precision for some reason.
Only IMO of course! I had a very bad habit of pulling things apart as a kid to see how they worked.... only to never put them back together.... if that is anyway similar - at least I was curious.

No, this isn't a good way. Satisfying in the short term, bit not useful. You are training your brain to respond to anger with destructive behavior. Neuroplasticity 101. As you break things over and over again, you brain gets better and better at breaking things when angry.

You essentially get better at freaking out, all the while learning to treat breaking things as a reward. Except that most of our problems demand a different response.

Cabur Senaar wrote: No, this isn't a good way. Satisfying in the short term, bit not useful. You are training your brain to respond to anger with destructive behavior.

I know this evidence is anecdotal, but I've been using this method to deal with my anger for 23 years. It's decreased my violent outbursts, not reinforced them.

I used to be a very angry, stressy, person.. and for a long while I really wanted to kickbox.. and I did go for a little while but it didn't really satisfy that frustration for very long.

I've found that actually changing my attitude and not letting things get to me so much, and not allowing myself to get stressed so much has actually proved to be a better method. Now I would rather take tai chi than kickboxing.

I feel rather that smashing things is not a long term solution to frustration.. that changing ones attitude is a more important focus.