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 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 growing frustration among youths led to recent mass protests in which several people were killed by security forces .
The inflation rate has reached a 28-year-high of 33.4%, while the naira currency has fallen to record lows against the dollar. Mental health services remain foreign or unaffordable for many in Africa's most populous country, where 40% of citizens live below $2 per day.
The West African nation has fewer than 400 registered psychologists, according to the Nigerian Association of Clinical Psychologists. That means one psychologist for about every half a million people. Even when therapy is available, stigma remains a challenge, NACP president Gboyeg.