Smash therapy

For her 35th birthday, Deja Monet decided she wanted to break something. So on a Tuesday afternoon in March, she and her boyfriend headed to The Ragery, a “rage room” on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, grabbed a helmet and a pair of googles, and picked up a sledgehammer.

What was so stressful about Monet’s life that she’d spend the next half hour taking aim at stacks of plates, an old computer monitor, and a keyboard?

“Work,” Monet said, without missing a beat.

Monet, a special-ed high school teacher, clarified that the kids aren’t the problem. It’s the rest of it: the endless paperwork, shifting lesson plans, and constant assessments.

Inside the rage room, Monet was tentative at first, but then entered a flow state, conjuring up something that was bothering her before taking each swing. Then: Boom! She’d never done anything like this before, and it was thrilling. A half hour later, “it looked like an explosion had happened,” she said.

The session, Monet said, did the trick, at least temporarily. “It was just this huge sense of calmness,” Monet said.

Rage rooms and ax-throwing studios aren’t a new concept. But in an era when American workers are stressed, facing layoffs, stuck in jobs they don’t like, and worried their careers could turn obsolete, they’re having a moment. They’re finding a niche as venues for corporate team-building events and becoming after-work hangout spots where coworkers can bond and let off a little steam.

At The Ragery, corporate bookings have more than doubled from a year ago, as of January, said Bogdan Zhukovskyi, its co-owner. For individuals, packages range from $78.38, which covers 15 minutes in a room outfitted with four ceramic items and one “small office tech,” to $522.50 for a 45-minute “VIP Experience,” where the room can be set up like a full office, and customers are free to take a swing at anything in sight.

Customers are encouraged to personalize their setup. Zhukovskyi has seen coworkers come in with pictures of their bosses, which they affix onto the objects and antique detritus piled up in the rooms. He recalled one customer showing up with a stack of email printouts, which he then got to work reducing to confetti.

Experts I talked to added a note of caution ​​for anyone seeking this kind of therapy: smashing something may feel good in the moment — but it doesn’t necessarily make you less angry.

It’s a strange moment in the American workplace: morale is slipping, jobs are disappearing, and yet hardly anyone is quitting.

Worker sentiment was down in February for the sixth straight month, with drops in motivation and commitment across industries and job types, according to a report from the ADP Research Employee Motivation and Commitment Index. Meanwhile, federal data shows quit rates are hovering near their lowest levels in a decade.

Compounding workplace stress, many top companies have embraced a more “hardcore” management culture, raising performance expectations, increasing accountability, and mandating sweeping return-to-office policies.

The traditional after-work happy hour has meanwhile disappeared from a lot of workplaces, in part because people are drinking much less. (The US drinking rate just hit a 90-year low, according to Gallup.) The American Psychological Association reports that loneliness and emotional disconnection “have become a defining feature of life in America.”

Younger workers, especially, are embracing a more intentional and fulfilling way to connect with colleagues, often through physical activities like cold plunges, running clubs — and rage rooms, which offer a novel experience where you can bond, get your blood flowing, and, perhaps, release some pent-up feelings.

At the Rage Cage in Brooklyn, where packages range from, $69.99 to $224.99, patrons don white jumpsuits to smash their way through plates and an assortment of small and large vintage electronics.

“We always hear ‘I didn’t think I needed that, but I feel so much better now,'” said Jeffrey Yip, its owner. “Even if you think you’re not stressed out, and you come and break things, you’ll feel better.”

Yip recalled one man who showed up wearing a three-piece suit and announced, “I got laid off. I need this.”

It’s not just employees who are embracing these venues; companies also see the appeal of giving employees an outlet for their desire to smash things.

At ax-throwing chain Bury the Hatchet, which has locations across the country and where a one-hour session costs around $48 per person, corporate events now make up the majority of business.

In some cases, companies will rent out the facility for three hours, throw for two, and then dedicate an hour to a meeting, said Jay Veloso, the chain’s chief marketing officer. “They’re like, ‘Let’s take it out of the whole professional sit-down atmosphere and let’s do something fun, but also still have a professional part about it,” Veloso said.

For those with something specific to work out, the venue allows throwers to pin images representing all kinds of irritants — an overbearing manager, say, or a company’s much-despised software — to different rings on the target.

“Ax-throwing is cheaper than therapy,” Veloso said.

Perhaps. But are the benefits even a little bit comparable?

It’s well-established that exercise and socializing can help relieve stress, improve resilience, and boost your mood. Swinging a sledgehammer or an ax can also be a fun new thing to try — a welcome break from being too sedentary and too much time spent on our phones.

“The digitalization of our lives leaves us craving something more hands-on — almost barbaric — to quench that inner thirst,” Zhukovskyi said.

That was the case for Ally Temsey, 25, who works in social media marketing in New York and recently hung out with three coworkers for the first time outside of work.

They ended up visiting a rage room, which they saw as a welcome excuse to escape social media and their phones. It also gave them an opportunity to hang out and show some vulnerability.

“We already had a great relationship, but this built it even stronger because we understand each other’s pressure,” Temsey said. “You’re being human, and you’re remembering that we are people outside of our jobs.”

But while rage rooms are fine as a novel experience or for team bonding, experts stress that they are not a sustainable or especially effective way to manage anger.

“It keeps the angry thoughts at the surface, where you’re thinking about them, because you’re acting on them,” said Ryan Martin, a psychologist and author of multiple books on anger management who’s known as “the Anger Professor.”

“If you’re relying on that as your anger management strategy,” Martin said, it could end up “exacerbating angry feelings and making you more aggressive.”

That concern was echoed by Brad Bushman, a professor at Ohio State University who has testified before Congress about youth violence.

He ticked off yoga, breathwork, and mindfulness as more effective strategies for managing anger without suppressing unpleasant feelings.

Monet didn’t appreciate the intensity of her experience at The Ragery until a few hours after her visit, when she noticed how sore her muscles were.

She’s not sure she’ll become a regular — so much of the thrill was in the novelty. But she can see herself going back at least a second time.

“I can see it as an alternative for people who want to seek out other outlets to express their emotions in a positive way,” Monet said, adding that it was also a nice thing to share with her 33-year-old boyfriend, Joaquin Terrero.

Terrero, a lawyer, had tagged along to help celebrate Monet’s birthday. He ended up thoroughly enjoying the experience. He “couldn’t stop smiling after” and left feeling “lighter in spirit and energized,” he said.

Of course, work isn’t the only source of strain that might leave one wanting to throw something.

Everyday problems — especially heartbreak — have long fueled the smashing business and continue to be a driving factor for people who break objects in their free time.

Nearly every rage room owner I spoke to said that getting dumped was the top reason people give when they walk through the door. February, in particular, was a busy month for heartbreak victims.

“There’s a lot of catharsis in chucking a piece of metal at a chunk of wood, and it’s not doing us any use keeping anger inside,” Jackson Pierce, a supervisor at Kick Axe Throwing in Brooklyn, said of the studio’s appeal. “Here, you allow all that negative energy to flow through your body and out through the ax.”

“And no one throws harder than a person who’s just been broken up with.”

Ana Altchek is a reporter on Business Insider’s careers and leadership desk.