There’s nothing like stress to make you look like you’ve travelled 10 years into the future, and nothing like breaking a roomful of stuff to relieve it.

Watching the newly re-elected US president Barrack Obama’s inauguration ceremony, I was struck by several thoughts, the first was thanking the celestial powers that it was Obama and not Mit Romney standing up there getting inugurated.

The second was that the poet brought up to speak, Henry Blanco, didn’t make one single rhyme (though he did make this perplexing statement, “like a silent drum tapping at our windows and rooftops”; I suppose a silent drum taps silently which is to say, it’s like nothing tapping at the windows), and my final thought was that Mr. Obama – though still as charismatic and charming as ever – was looking slightly worse for wear than he did four years ago when he was first inaugurated.

He still had the same vigour and passion when he spoke but his hair had greyed; in fact his entire appearance seemed greyer somehow. His cheeks and face seemed sunken, the skin hanging loose off the bones.

Was I imagining things? Had the lighting guys done a terrible job at the inauguration? (Yes, as a model, this struck me as a viable answer).

A quick search on the Internet found I wasn’t the only one who noticed. Websites had photo comparisons of past US presidents from Gerald Ford to George W Bush and how they go in rosy cheeked and sparkly eyed and come out with faces like leather bags with vacant stares that could get them to be zombie extras on The Walking Dead.

The American Presidency is stressful, plain and simple. It’s said to age its presidents at double the rate, meaning a guy goes in looking 45 and comes out looking like he had a methaphytamine addiction. Ok, maybe not quite that extreme but you get the picture.

And why wouldn’t a job like that age someone? I’m a model and TV presenter who writes sometimes, and I get stressed when I inherit an extra column for the week. Obama inherited two wars and a crumbling economy. I would’ve stabbed myself in the eye with a spoon to escape that kind of stress.

But what is it about stress that ages someone? Is it that simply sitting around scowling while contemplating the fate of millions physically causes wrinkles? Not quite.

Stress actually releases a hormone called cortisol which impairs the ability of the skin to hold water, which can cause someone to appear grey. This lack of water also leads to dry skin and increased wrinkling. Looking this stuff up on the Internet has me reaching for skin cream.

Stress also damages elastin and collagen, but before you reach for one of those collagen-infused drinks, I should tell you they don’t work. Yep, I looked that up too. The Internet is a great place to smash your illusions.

Clearly being President needs some serious stress relief, like industrial-strength stress relief. Counting to 10, deep breathing, and talking a time out to imagine your happy place just isn’t going to cut it.

Good thing a couple of teenagers in Serbia have come up with The Rage Room, the extra strength pain killer of stress relief.

For about RM18, a stressed, angry, or just plain violent person can go into the Rage Room and smash a table, chair, bed, and book shelf. This fee also includes all the accompaniments like picture frames, where perhaps one can put pictures of exceptionally stressful individuals to deal with and smash the beans out of them.

Who needs all that expensive emotional therapy when you can break stuff? And also this other question: they let people break all that stuff for RM18? Not even if they’re buying from IKEA is that affordable.

The economics of their business aside, the Rage Room makes a modest profit with dozens of visitors since it first opened last October. One user of the Serbian Rage Room, when finished with his session – which included a helmet and protecive glasses (presumably in case there is rage splash-back) and tranquil music to bask in once the rage was finished – exclaimed, “This is better than getting into a fight!”

Which doesn’t say too much in my mind as there are roughly 405,654 things I would prefer than getting into a fight, but that’s me.

Still I could see the therapeutic benefit of walking into a room and going full Incredible Hulk on it. Everybody has felt like doing that at one point or another, which is why it shouldn’t be surprising that the creators of Rage Room have found it quite popular with women as well.

Perhaps all President Obama needs is a sturdy Rage Room to relieve stress and stop some of this early aging. Clearly with his budget he could make his own elaborate rage room or fly to Serbia occasionaly to take advantage of the RM18 room there.

In any case Obama visiting the Rage Room could help tackle the US debt – all they have to do is make a pay-per-view event out of it.

I’d definitely pay up to watch the President of the United States beating a nightstand with an aluminum bat.

        > Jason Godfrey can be seen hosting The LINK on Life Inspired (Astro B.yond Ch 706).

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