Editor’s Note: The Northern Star does not encourage readers to replace therapy with rage room visits. Students seeking counseling can contact Counseling and Consultation Services. 

It’s time for a new therapeutic activity in town. By implementing an on-campus rage room, students wouldn’t need to pay for therapy. Expressing emotions by screaming and smashing items is essentially equivalent to therapy, just without spilling your thoughts and feelings to a random stranger.

Stressed-out college students juggle school, work and the relentless pressure to succeed. Due to this stress, students seek an outlet for their pent-up emotions. During the spring 2023 semester, 66% of students reported feeling stressed, according to a Gallup survey. 

Students’ well-being and academic performance can drastically suffer when students are stressed. Health problems can occur from stress, such as depression and anxiety, according to the Jed Foundation. 

Leah Tobben, a junior health sciences major, said that students can benefit from having a rage room on campus.

“I think college students could benefit from a rage room because it can relieve stress,” Tobben said.

An on-campus rage room could be just the thing to help students with their well-being and academic performance, while providing a fun experience. Since rage rooms can help relieve stress. They can also potentially be beneficial in assisting with health issues like depression and anxiety.

Provided with protective gear and tools such as baseball bats or sledgehammers, rage-room-goers obliterate objects like furniture, glassware and old electronics. 

Rage rooms are the ultimate mic drop – or in this case, a sledgehammer drop.

Cole Johnson, a part-time Axe Zone employee at 1592 W. Ogden Ave., in Naperville, IL, said rage rooms provide safety by providing protective gear such as glasses. 

Axe Zone provides axe throwing along with their rage room. They also host birthday parties, bachelor and bachelorette parties as well as team building and company events.

When smashing and breaking items, students engage in physical activity, which releases dopamine and serotonin — neurotransmitters that help boost mood, according to the American Psychological Association.

Grumpy grinches may argue that rage rooms promote aggressive behavior or exacerbate anger issues. However, students can unleash their inner Ralph from “Wreck-It Ralph” and destroy old equipment in their path. Rage rooms provide a path of destruction that becomes a safe, controlled and supervised lair for anger.

Johnson also said rage rooms are not meant to promote violence; instead, they help individuals release their emotions in a healthy way.

“It allows them to take their anger out on something that doesn’t damage others, you know, instead of hurting someone else and taking their feelings out on them; instead, they break a bunch of old stuff,” Johnson said. “It’s pretty stress relieving, I do it myself.”

Tobben said that she would benefit from having a rage room at NIU.

“I would like to have a rage room at NIU because it would be something for NIU students to do that could help relieve stress in a safe environment,” Tobben said.

Students should embrace the chaos that is life and partake in fun activities like rage rooms. NIU should include a rage room on campus.