Angry at the world? A $95 ‘rage retreat’ session may be the answer – ‘screaming my face off was exactly what I needed’

Finances, work and physical ailments lead the “high stress” list, all of which tallied more than 70% on the AMFM high anxiety list.

“This data suggests that stress is not just common,” AMFM noted in a statement. “For many people, it is intensifying. Rather than being tied to one temporary event, stress appears to be woven into daily life, fueled by multiple pressures at once.”

The age of rage is here, and motivational coping sessions are rising fast

In response, angst-ridden Americans are pivoting to novel, no-nonsense ways to cope with high anxiety. One tactic gaining traction is so-called “rage sessions,” where anxious adults pay cash to cut loose, shake their fists at the sky and scream to their heart’s content.

A growing number of self-help companies are happy to oblige, hosting scream sessions to meet rising demand.

Take RAGEher, a Chicago-based wellness and fitness services company that promotes “a movement reclaiming feminine rage as life force-through embodiment, community and storytelling.” The stressed-out set pays $95 to scream, rage and let it all hang out at highly attended rage-expression events. The sessions are so successful there’s a waiting list for future events, and 20% of RAGEher’s attendees are return customers, Bloomberg reported.

Then there’s Rage Ritual, a movement and embodiment workshop where attendees pay up to $4,000 for six days of rage expression, using screams, growls, deep sighs and physical actions like swinging sticks and slamming the ground to release tension. Or non-profit groups that offer backyard rage events for $25 a pop, with the proceeds going to charity.

Participants are lining up for tension relief engagements, and love the results.

“I’m not a violent or aggressive person by any means,” cancer survivor Rachel Mehl, a Pittsburgh resident who has organized rage sessions on her property, free of charge, told Bloomberg. “I’ve never been in a fistfight. I’m not a yeller. But punching and kicking that bag while screaming my face off was exactly what I needed to process and release all of those big emotions that had nowhere else to go.”

Some mental health professionals, after all, suggest that letting emotions flow, loud and proud, can be cathartic.

“Screaming helps to relieve anger the same way a good yawn feels relieving,” Dr. David Timpanaro, founder of Step Up Family Services, a New Jersey-based mental and behavioral health organization, told Moneywise. “Our bodies and minds have this anger they have to let out … Rage retreats promise emotional release through screaming, shouting and other expressions of frustration.”

Too much anger release may have a looming downside

But not all wellness experts are so sure rage sessions are a good idea, at least on their own.

“Screaming can feel really good in the moment, especially for people who’ve spent years holding everything in,” Cheryl Groskopf, a Los Angeles-based therapist and professional clinical counselor, told Moneywise. “Yet feeling relief doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve actually regulated your anger.”

When people grow angry, their nervous system is already activated, and screaming can sometimes keep that activation going or intensify it, Groskopf noted.

“There’s also a difference between allowing yourself to feel anger versus repeatedly practicing aggressive ways of expressing it,” she stated. “What matters is whether you’re learning how to experience anger without becoming completely overwhelmed by it.”

The lash-out sessions are also largely about choices, and right now, Americans increasingly don’t see many options on the horizon.

“Happiness habits cost nothing but positive effort,” Alexia Georghiou, keynote speaker at the Knoxville Happiness Coalition, told Moneywise. “It’s easier to worry, get angry and complain. Yet guess what? Our brain wires around this disastrous thinking, and we are victims of our circumstances and have no choice but to scream.”

In that context, Georghiou said rage sessions are actually defeatist.

“Neurologically, we default to negative because our brain at rest scans for threats due to the hunter-gatherer days,” she noted. “But there’s no data backing this up. When my brother and I were 11 and eight years old, we’d respectively scream into pillows to relieve stress. It was the 80s.”

There could be a better way to spend that $95

As long as the therapy is safe and secure, few would judge a rage session devotee who steers a C-note toward screaming sessions. There are other, more sedate options.

“Take the $100 and do something kind for someone while you participate in a fun activity,” Georghiou said. “Sometimes we just need a shift in perspective — a break to see the situation in a well-balanced way.”

Georghiou’s advice? Do something you wouldn’t normally do. Take a class, paint, write or listen to a quirky podcast.