At the very least, a stress ball is something you squeeze to relieve stress. But, Office Playground, Inc. digs deeper into the definition of a stress ball.
Some stress balls are not a ball at all. In the Promotional Products Industry (where companies put logos on merchandise), stress balls typically refer to any squishy shape that is made out of polyurethane foam. Examples of this industry standard stress ball include: Brains, Light Bulbs, Dollar Signs and Animals. At Office Playground, Inc., we categorize these polyurethane foam shapes as “Foam Stress Toys”. Although they are squishy and fun to squeeze, we don’t call them stress balls because they are not shaped like a round ball.
While a majority of stress balls are designed to be squished, a stress ball doesn’t necessarily have to be squishy to be fun and stress relieving. Consider the following Office Playground, Inc. products: Suction Ball, Rubber Band Ball or Koosh Ball. These office toys are not easily squished, but playing with them offers a great deal of stress relief and relaxation. Therefore, we classify this type of item as a stress ball.
Although many of our polyurethane shapes are not called stress balls because they are not round, other non-round items are given the stress ball label. Take, for example, the balls listed here: Footballs, Gyro Exerciser or Horror Ball – Shark. We could’ve put these office toys in the Stress Relievers category instead. However, after exhaustive analysis (not really), we decided they are round enough to be considered a stress ball.
At this point, you are probably asking yourself if we are crazy enough to call a non-round, non-polyurethane office toy a stress ball... and the answer is YES! The folks here at Office Playground, Inc. often refer to non-balls as stress balls. Examples of this include the Ball of Population, Spaghetti Ball and Animal Noodle Ball. The biggest driver for labeling such items this way is because that’s what the manufacturers are calling them. Plus, it’d be a bit problematic if the names were Population, Spaghetti and Animal Noodle. Adding the ball at the end makes the names simply roll off your tongue.
To sum it all up for you, a stress ball is an item that is round (or close enough to round) that offers tremendous stress relief benefits. For those of you still reading, we hope this sheds some light on the topic of how Office Playground, Inc. categorizes their stress balls. We know this has surely been on your mind (not really)! Be sure to visit our Stress Balls category to see them all for yourself. Have a fun and stress free day!.
