[Bread-Baking Typewriter] How to Turn Stress into Life's Driving Force

The Moment of Perceiving Intentional Positivity
'YouStress' Zone... Potential for Peak Performance

It is the era of stress refugees. To escape from stress and shake it off, people employ all kinds of means. Taking a trip somewhere to live for a month has become a trend. Some believe that social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok are the only escape routes. However, fleeing from stress is only temporary. We face stress again and scream out loud.

Stress has become a social issue. It is identified as a cause of various diseases, and some people, crushed by stress, make extreme choices. The book Upshift is a prescription for stress refugees. It is not a solution like the old advertising slogan, "If you can't avoid it, enjoy it."

The author, Ben Ramalingam, has worked for over 20 years with organizations such as the UN, the Red Cross, and Doctors Without Borders, making the world struck by tragedies like the Ukraine war and Japan’s tsunami his workplace. These are places where every surrounding environment acts as stress. But the author did not succumb to stress. Instead, he found his own way to harness stress as a driving force.

The term Upshift, which is also the book’s title, refers to the moment when stress is deliberately perceived positively. The author emphasizes the importance of reaching the zone where one can maximize performance between excessive stress and too little stress through upshift. This zone is the optimal area where psychologists say one experiences “eustress,” a good kind of stress, and can achieve peak performance. The author shares methods to reach this zone through his own experiences and stories of people who produced remarkable outcomes in difficult situations.

The author analyzed that those who productively transform painful and avoidable stress into “upshifters” commonly share a “mindset,” “creativity,” and “sense of purpose.” Their mindset perceives painful problem situations not as a “threat” but as a “challenge” that can be overcome. They have creativity that solves tasks by using what they know without relying on existing understandings and approaches. And despite all difficulties and crises, they do their best for what they find meaningful and valuable.

This commonality is not a special trait found only in historical figures or leaders of giant corporations. These three qualities apply equally to office workers who fight stress daily, disaster relief workers on the battlefield, and even parents wrestling with their children.

We can recall moments when stress was useful right now. Everyone has experienced a moment when a deadline suddenly accelerates a stalled project or when a breakthrough idea comes to mind after wrestling with a problem late into the night. That moment is when we become upshifters.

The author states, “We have the ability to use pressure and stress as catalysts for creative change,” and “Pressure, even disasters, can be harnessed as a driving force for creativity. Thanks to this, humanity survived the Ice Age and evolved into modern humans.” He explains that we do not need to fear stress and pressure. “Based on the proverb ‘Diamonds are not made without pressure,’ we must change our mindset about stress and pressure,” he emphasizes.

Upshift | Written by Ben Ramalingam | Translated by Kim Mijeong | Heurim Publishing | 360 pages | 21,000 KRW

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.