Last Friday, students let out their stress by hitting a car that was at the grassy area next to Demergasso Bava Hall (DBH) and Bizzini.

The event was conducted by Madeline Runyan (senior, Business) for her Honors Capstone research project.

“My capstone project is about stress management. So, whether or not hitting or destroying something would reduce stress,” Runyan said.

The participants had to follow a few rules and participate in a survey before and after they hit the car. Eyewear, gloves and a bat were provided and given to the participants who had a maximum of a minute to let their stress out on the car. 

Runyan was inspired by rage rooms that are used throughout the country to help people reduce stress.

“I found this thing on the interweb and it’s something called a ‘rage room’ and they do this. They’ll set up a room and you can destroy small objects or big electronics. It’s in Texas or in the East Coast, there’s a few in the west coast, but I can’t seem to find one that is opened right now,” Runyan said.

Carlos Campos (junior, Business) was intrigued from the poster he saw around campus that was advertising the event.

“I saw a poster in the DBH that told about the car and it sounded interesting and I figured why not because it was free too,” Campos said.

The reason that a car was chosen was because it was the safest thing to break on campus and previous history of using a car.

“[It was] easier with Risk Management and the school to follow the rules than small glass objects because [the glass objects] fly a lot more. So it’s easier and it’s been done before on campus so I knew I could get it approved,” Runyan said.

Danny Zepeda (senior, Kinesiology) thinks the project is beneficial for people to relieve stress.

“Absolutely, it brings out the animal in you in a controlled environment where you won’t get in trouble,” Zepeda said.

Campos and Zepeda felt better after they had a minute to let their stress out and hit the car.

“Before, not too stressed, but after I felt good. It was just nice to let the energy out and the adrenaline pumping,” Campos said.

“I felt fine before, little anxious. After hitting the car I felt a lot better, more relaxed and more at ease,” Zepeda said.

Dr. Daniel Berkow, the Psychological Counseling Services Director at Stan State, says that hitting something to reduce stress is positive under the circumstances of the situation.

“I wouldn’t say that ‘hitting something,’ per say, is automatically beneficial to reducing stress. It all depends on the context. What is the stress from, what is being hit, in what way, for what reason? If hitting is part of physical exercise, and the exercise is regular, there can be healthy stress reduction that is part of that exercise. Physical exercise within limits that are healthy, is a positive stress reliever. Some types of physical exercise can involve hitting, such as hitting a punching bag or chopping wood,” Berkow said.

Berkow adds that there should be a distinction between hitting something in anger and hitting something to reduce stress.

“If one is stressed because one is angry, and believes that one should hit something to relieve the stress of the anger, one may be forming a mental and emotional association between ‘feeling angry’ and ‘hitting something,’ particularly if there is not an organized exercise program involved,” Berkow said. “Perhaps there are some situations in which taking direct action is important to relieve one’s feelings of frustration or anger, but there are many situations in which hitting or direct action might not be a good idea”.

Runyan added that the reception of the project was positive and students seemed to enjoy hitting the car. The event started from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. when Runyan ran out of surveys for the participants to fill out.