Stress relief comes in many forms

Some people choose hot baths and visits to day spas.

Others prefer to whack the living daylights out of a boxing bag.

Those are to name just a couple; of course, there are many more.

I’d rather not wake up and choose violence on any given day, but sometimes stress manifests into anger and I would rather throw an axe than throw a tantrum.

And I would rather smash a crate full of already chipped thrift shop crockery than the ones out of my kitchen cupboard reserved for dining at home. (Who am I kidding? With a house full of kids putting dishes away, those are quite chipped themselves)

This is where smash rooms and axe-throwing alleys come in.

Smash rooms have been popping up in cities for a few years now and offer a safe and controlled environment in which to smash, shatter and crush items until that look of stress leaves your brow and is replaced with a wide smile on your dial.

On a child-free weekend, a few girlfriends and I headed to Melbourne for some R and R, which just happened to include a visit to The Break Room in Collingwood.

Each of us took turns in a small room — already half-filled with half a bobcat bucket full of busted porcelain — clothed in coveralls, safety gloves, full face protection and enclosed shoes, armed with a baseball bat and a playlist of our most favourite angry hype songs (think Rage Against The Machine’s Killing In The Name Of).

The door shuts, the music starts playing and it’s just you, your stress, your bat and a crate of crockery waiting to be desecrated.

A glass viewing window behind you allows your friends to get a glimpse into just how stressed (or nuts) you are and take pictures to prove it.

It was noisy, sweaty, dusty and somehow bits of broken ceramics still made it into my shoes, but it was fun and I did feel like there was a bunch of aggression released afterwards, despite not even thinking prior I had been holding on to any.

With smash rooms, you are pretty much aimlessly smashing things up.

While that sounds animalistic and appealing because you don’t have to use your brain, no-one in our group used their whole allocated time slot.

Maybe we just weren’t angry enough at the world. Or maybe the relief comes quickly with this activity.

Perhaps more effective for me was the axe-throwing experience at Escape Smash and Play in Ballarat a few weeks ago.

I enjoyed this more because it allows you to apply method to your madness.

You have a target to aim for and it requires a certain amount of practice and skill to hit it.

And when you do, you feel like an absolute boss.

It’s empowering, it’s stress-relieving and it’s addictive.

With three different sized axes to ‘play’ with, each required a different kind of handling.

I found myself saying, “I just want to hit one more bullseye with each of them and then we’ll go”.

One turns into two, two turns into five, five turns into 10…

It’s a much more ancient art form than smashing crockery (if that can even be considered an art form), with the first axe-throwing competitions held in North America by frontiersmen and among Celtic tribes.

I walked away from this activity sweaty, relieved and smiling, too, but (gratefully) sans the dust in my hair and a sharp shard of Grandma’s broken teacup wedged in my big toe.

I also left with this crazy idea to build an enclosed axe-throwing alley down the unused side of my house when I got home.

But I quickly shelved it when I heard very soon we’re going to have our own axe-throwing lanes in Shepparton, along with escape rooms, smash rooms and licensed mini golf in the same complex.

While you might have to be over 18 to hurl axes and smash plates, the complex will be open to all ages before 6pm and during school holidays, where kids will be able to enjoy mini golf and escape rooms.

So maybe, just maybe, I’ll get some redemption on the mini golf course.

Given I can’t get out of an escape room without the kids’ help, can no longer drive a go-kart faster or knock more pins down than them bowling, I don’t like my chances.

But maybe by the time they’re 18, my girlfriends and I might have had so much experience smashing and throwing that we have the edge to beat all our little cherubs in an axe-throwing battle.

We will 100 per cent be hitting this exciting new venue after 6pm, because sometimes, for some of us, the best stress relief is a night out with your besties.