How do you deal with stress? In Nigeria, swinging a sledgehammer in a ‘rage room’ helps

BY CHINEDU ASADU AND DAN IKPOYI

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — How do you deal with stress?

In Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city, people are finding their reset button in a “rage room” where they pay to smash electronics and furniture with a sledgehammer as a break from the worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation.

The Shadow Rage Room, apparently the first of its kind in Nigeria, offers “a safe space” for people to let out pent-up emotions, according to Dr. James Babajide Banjoko, the founder and a physician. The idea, he said, came during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 after he lost his mother and struggled with work.

For 7,500 naira ($5), customers are left alone with protective gear and a sledgehammer or bat in a room for a 30-minute session with the items that are later recycled.

Times are tough in Nigeria, a country of over 200 million people where