I have started a while ago to think about writing an article on the benefits of squash in my life. Still, I was not sure where to start from, being so many. So I ended up not writing it at all.
Until today. Today I have realised that each benefit is so strong that it deserves its own article. Thus, now I am gonna tackle this precious topic: squash as a stress (and sometimes even anger) management game/tool/therapy.
Dragos told me about this in one of our first games, but at that time it sounded just like theory to me. Still, I did not reject the idea. But as the months passed by I have started to feel this little by little in my life. The more I was playing it every week, the more relaxed and focused I seemed to be in my day-to-day life: at work, with my family, friends etc.
There were times when only the fact that I was playing was just doing its magic. And there were times when I needed to really get my stress, frustrations and everything else out of my system, right there on the court. I needed to shout, I needed to be angry. I was looking like being angry on my game or some small “wrong” decisions of let/stroke, but in the end it actually had nothing to do with what was happening on the court.
Now, due to a unique characteristic of this game (the two players being locked in between 4 walls with the strict rules of not hurting each other; at least not thought direct hitting each other) I had to still respect my opponent and get everything out of my system while remaining present at my actions and making sure the other player is safe. This is something that helps a lot, because stress (and anger) management somehow can result (while using other ways to get it out of the system) in people hurting themselves or hurting each other. Well, the setup of squash makes that less possible.
So, I am grateful to have the chance to get things out of my system, first of all. And second of all, to be able to do it in a setup that is keeping me and the people I play with safe.
In the end, I want to reference this article (from where I have the image for this post too) as it highlights in a structured way the aspects that I have only presented from my own and personal experience.
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