Can You Play an Escape Room if You Have Anxiety?

While escape rooms are designed to be a fun activity to do with family and friends, the concept of being locked in a room and solving intense challenges under a time crunch may not sound appealing to everyone. If you deal with claustrophobia or general anxiety, you may be wondering if escape rooms are a safe and enjoyable activity for you. 

While of course, we are biased, we at Breakout Games believe there is no need to fear escape rooms. Our rooms are designed to be fun first, not scary. In this post, we’ll answer some of our most frequently asked questions, which we hope will put your mind at ease. 

No, the doors to our escape rooms at Breakout do not actually lock. You are free to leave the room at any time. In case of an emergency or if you just need to step away for a moment, you will always have that option. 

We do have three rooms at Breakout Games that use handcuffs: Hostage, The Kidnapping, and Wild West. The rest of our escape rooms do not have any physical restraints. 

In our rooms that use restraints, you will be handcuffed to a designated area of the room. Your first step in the game will be to find a key to unlock your handcuffs. Our handcuffs do have safety measures built in. They can easily unclip from the area they are in. So if you need to, you can unhook your handcuffs and move about freely. Our game masters also have plenty of spare keys on hand, so they can let you out of your handcuffs if needed.

If you do want to play any of these rooms without handcuffs, we can make arrangements for you not to use them ahead of time. Please call your local Breakout location so we can arrange this option for you. But for any of our other escape rooms, you will not have to worry about physical restraints. 

Yes, our escape rooms are designed with safety as a priority. Our games are designed to be mentally challenging, not physically challenging. So you will not need to use a lot of physical energy to solve the room. The physical interaction may involve walking around the room, picking up props, and writing things down. But you will not need to climb, run, or jump in the room. 

Throughout your game, you will also have a game master monitoring your experience. They will watch from security cameras to make sure that you’re staying safe and having fun. They will also be available to give you hints when you ask for them. Your safety is your game master’s priority, so they will ensure that you feel comfortable the entire time. 

At Breakout, we want our rooms to feel suspenseful, but not outright scary. We do not use any live actors in our games. We do have some, mild “surprise elements” in some of our rooms. But these elements are meant to surprise you rather than being a jump scare. Our surprise elements usually involve something opening that wasn’t before (so nothing really scary, just surprising!)

Of course. As we said, you are free to leave the room at any time. And your game master will be monitoring your experience to make sure you are comfortable. We want you to have a good time in our rooms, and we will make every effort to ensure that you feel safe and that you’re having fun. The overwhelming majority of people who play our rooms, even the players who are nervous at first, end up having a great time. 

No, at Breakout, all of our escape rooms are a private experience, no matter your group size. This means you’ll only be playing with the people you signed up with. So in our rooms, you’ll be with people you know and love, having a great time together.

We hope this post has helped you feel better about playing an escape room if you have anxiety. We understand that this new experience may bring up some fears, but we really think that if you try it, you’ll have a great time.

Read this ultimate guide to your first escape room if you want to learn more.