LAGOS, Nigeria — How do you deal with stress?
In Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city, people are finding their reset button in a “rage room” where they are paying to smash electronics and furniture with a sledgehammer to escape the worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation.
The Shadow Rage Room, apparently the first of its kind in Nigeria, provides “a safe space” for people to release pent-up emotions, according to Dr. James Babajide Banjoko, the founder and doctor. The idea, he said, came to him during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 after he lost his mother and was struggling with work.
For 7,500 naira ($5), customers are left alone in a room with protective clothing and a sledgehammer or baseball bat for half an hour to work with the items that will later be recycled.
Times are tough in Nigeria, a country of over 200 million people. Growing frustration among youth recently led to mass protests in which several people were killed by security forces. Inflation has hit a 28-year high of 33.4%, while the naira has fallen to a record low against the dollar.
For many people in Africa’s most populous country, mental health services remain foreign or unaffordable, with 40 percent of citizens living on less than two dollars a day.
According to the Nigerian Association of Clinical Psychologists, there are fewer than 400 registered psychologists in the West African country. That means there is one psychologist for about half a million people.
Even if treatment is available, stigma remains a problem, NACP President Gboyega Emmanuel Abikoye said in an interview.
In other parts of the world, rage rooms aren’t necessarily new. There’s no documented evidence of their mental health benefits beyond the temporary relief one gets from venting one’s feelings, Abikoye said.
Instead, experts in Nigeria see a growing need for longer-term emotional support, especially among young people.
In Lagos, a crowded city of around 20 million people and a magnet for people seeking better opportunities, these needs are even more pronounced. Everyday stressors include traffic congestion, known to leave drivers and passengers stranded on the streets for hours in the heat and smog in one of the most polluted cities in the world.
Some Nigerians are turning to social media like TikTok to cope with stress. Others are finding support in communities wherever they can, from the church or mosque to the gym.
And now there is the Rage Room, which is open on weekends and, according to founder Banjoko, is usually fully booked up to two weeks in advance.
At the end of a smashing session, Olaribigbe Akeem, a recent visitor, came out sweaty but relieved and visibly happy.
“As an average Nigerian, you have to deal with a lot every day,” Akeem said. “The anger has been building up and instead of taking it out on someone, this is the best way for me to deal with it and I feel a lot renewed.”
Among the visitors to the Rage Room are couples who want to get something off their chest.
Sometimes people come just to relax, but find more.
“My favorite people are the ones who … just want to try it, and at the end of the day you see them break down, they cry, they become very expressive,” Banjoko said. He said he often sends them to therapy.
Dr. Maymunah Yusuf Kadiri, a Lagos-based psychiatrist, said the benefits of smashing objects are usually short-lived and cannot replace therapy.
There is also a risk that such practice could make someone less willing to use “healthy coping strategies,” she said, expressing concern that “repeated engagement … could reinforce aggressive tendencies.”
In the Rage Room, some clients said that their problems only feel easier until they leave the room and return to their daily lives.
But it’s still worth being vulnerable indoors, sledgehammer in hand, says Eka Stephanie Paul, an actress and television presenter.
“The problem is never solved anyway,” she said in the pidgin language widely spoken throughout Nigeria, acknowledging that the anger room was hardly a cure. “But right now I feel very good.”
___
Asadu reported from Abuja, Nigeria.
___
More news on Africa and development: https://apnews.com/hub/africa-pulse
___
The Associated Press receives funding for global coverage of health and development in Africa from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust. All content is solely the responsibility of AP. AP’s standards for working with charities, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas can be found at AP.org.
