Need to Get Your Anger Out? Go to a Smash Room (Like The Real Housewives of Dallas)
That's one way to make your feelings known.
LeeAnne Locken said this season that she wanted to be "zen and hopeful" — but sometimes you've gotta just smash s--t to pieces.
So, she rented a room for The Real Housewives of Dallas ladies to get out their anger. Aptly named, the Anger Room. It's a place where you gear up and smash objects (like furniture and old TV's) to release tension and pent up anger. Obviously, a lot comes out … D'Andra Simmons explodes at LeeAnne, Brandi Redmond unleashes on LeeAnne and Kameron Westcott and on and on.
These smash rooms have started to pop up across the country, Kourtney Kardashian was recently filmed on Keeping Up With the Kardashians trying to smash some stuff in a Los Angeles location after learning that Scott Disick's girlfriend Sofia Richie had met her kids without her pemission.
Tom Daly, owner of The Wrecking Club in New York City, tells Personal Space it’s a great way to de-stress. He left an accounting job to open his own smash room in 2016, he says, because he “wanted a different life than where corporate life was taking me.”
Once he started researching smash rooms, he discovered it had started in Japan in the 1970’s, then there was in one in New York around the same time, one popped up in Canada, Dallas, and Serbia.
“It was hard to tell if that was encouraging or not, because you’d see one pop up then disappear,” he says.
Tom says that while good for releasing anger, most of his clientele are coming for fun. “We get a lot of date nights, corporate events and things like that,” he says, adding, ‘There’s something cathartic about doing something you’re not allowed to do anyone else.”
He gets his “end of life cycle” stuff to smash from a number of different sources. Expect a variety of items like computer monitors, televisions, laptops, desktops, alarm clocks, printers, fax machines, furniture, and lots of porcelain or ceramic plates/glasses/mugs/bowls. Each smashing session is 30 minutes, with an additional 10 minutes for prep — setting up a smash play list, strapping on safety gear, and signing a waiver.
Elaine Ducharme, a clinical psychologist in Glastonbury, Ct., who specializes in trauma and abuse, tells the New York Post it really is a good outlet for getting out bad feelings.
“For some people, when they’re really angry and frustrated, doing something angry and physical makes them feel better,” she says.
