Laughing cheerfully as he starts his lesson Charles Stampley exudes positive energy. Whether making jokes about food from Sonic, calming down students panicking about grades, or showing genuine interest in his students personal success, Stampley remains a steady positive force in the lives of many that he interacts with. 

Stampley is a former member of the U.S. military, and would help build up soldiers’ self-esteem helping to find positive light in a world of negativity. Stampley now uses those skills as a history teacher, building up the students and staff around him.

“It’s important to be grounded in the real world and understand that bad things are going to happen,” Stampley said. “Bad things are going to happen to good people, and being prepared to help in those circumstances, helping yourself, helping your friends is important. Not everything is good every day.”

Stampley helps others remain positive by being positive himself. In the modern world there are many practices people can use to focus on and bring more positivity into their lives. According to the Berkeley Well-Being Institute, positivity is the continued action of being optimistic or positive. That includes positive emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. However along with true positivity which is fostered through healthy positive habits, there is also false positivity which can feel forced, and can just be used to suppress other negative emotions. The Berkeley Well-Being Institute pushes an ideology that positivity may only be good for those who are genuine about what they are feeling. 

“Positivity can impact memories,” psychology teacher Diana Croll-Guard said. “There is a concept in psychology called mood congruence which states that someone’s current mood will help elicit memories that match. For instance, when someone is happy, they are more likely to recall happy memories. When someone is angry, they will have a stronger recall of other instances when they had that emotion.”

Positivity can impact mental health in many ways. According to the University of Pennsylvania Online LPS, the serotonin produced when a person thinks optimistically can actually have a calming or focus effect. Furthermore, positive emotions can activate a person’s prefrontal cortex stimulating problem solving and creative thinking. According to the Business Insider, positive thinking habits can also have long term physical benefits such as lower risk of heart failure, fewer chronic illnesses, and reduced risk of hypertension. 

“Recently, there is a larger awareness of the impacts on mental health,” Croll-Guard said. “We can thank a few high-profile athletes for their bravery in addressing their mental health issues under public scrutiny, Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles. They both did an amazing job of humanizing the fact that mental health can have huge impacts on an individual and that it is important to address mental health in addition to physical health.”

One practice that can be related with affirmation is manifestation. Manifestation, according to MentalHealth.com, is the process of using focused thoughts and actions in order to bring certain desires into reality, which often involves visualization and goal setting. Manifestation can be used to overcome negative thought patterns such as catastrophizing which is the act of assuming or imagining the worst possible outcome for a situation. However, manifestation is not magical, because goals still often require actual action in order to be achieved, meaning manifesting a 100 on a math test may not actually have that result.

“Manifestation is like wishing for a positive result, or the best results of something,” Suskic said. “I think of it almost like praying, but not in a religious way. I think realistically manifestation has an effect of making people more optimistic. I think of it more as a short term thing. For example, when manifesting my group does good on a quiz, I don’t believe that there’s a way that something would change the results, but it makes the people around me feel better and have more optimism.”

Something that can help manifested dreams come to fruition is goal setting. According to PositivePsycology.com, goal setting can improve performance, persistence, task enjoyment, effort, and self-esteem. According to CALE Learning Enhancement, for the best results people can set both short term and long term goals, and they can set SMART goals which stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based goals.

“Goal setting is a very important, and a good thing to do, because if someone is just wandering around life, not really knowing what they’re doing and what they’re going for, I feel like that’s a very aimless thing to do,” Hartono said. “Wandering aimlessly without knowing what to do can also become negative, because then someone can start wondering what is my point in life, or  what am I doing? It can bring out those kinds of aspects in life, and cause someone to feel lost.”

One well known example of goal setting is New Year’s resolutions. At the start of the new year many people come up with intentions for the year ahead whether to exercise more, eat less sugar, or just be nicer. Although many people set goals for the new year, many people also quit their goals soon after with national quitters day landing on the second Friday in January.

“People shouldn’t have a set time for when they want to set their goals,” Hartono said. “People should be able to make their own goals whenever they want. Setting it up where someone will do a goal once a year specifically on New Year’s, makes it feel like they have to wait till they get there, and kind of waste time until then. I don’t think setting a New Year’s resolution is really that useful.”

Another activity that many people participate in at the start of the new year is the creation of vision boards. Vision boarding is an activity done year round, and is typically a collage of images, words, quotes, and other decorative items which can be made physically or digitally. Vision boards can be a way for people to physically visualize their goals. According to BetterUp, vision boards can be used to manifest goals, and frequently reviewing the board can help reinforce goals and possibly increase motivation.

“I love vision boards,” Suskic said. “I like making them visually appealing, and then also having some goals in mind, or general feelings of where I want to go, keeping in mind whenever the vision board is set to, whether it’s long term or short term.”

According to Culture Works, working towards and achieving goals helps with self esteem, creating a growth mindset, and learning about individual strengths and weaknesses. Culture Works also states that celebrating achievements is important for maintaining motivation and fulfillment when working towards goals. 

“I feel very happy and satisfied when I’ve met my goals, and I feel like I should try to make more goals that will make me reach beyond that to get be the person I want to be,” Hartono said.”My vision board is more of things I’ve been proud of, and what I’ve accomplished. That way I can see how I’ve progressed and where I need to go. I like having boards to see what I’ve done, so I know myself, I’ve made progress, I’ve done this, and I can do more.”

Along the path of life every human being experiences some good, and some bad. One practice that is often talked about when considering a positive attitude is gratitude, which is the state of being grateful or thankful. According to PositivePsycology.com, the practice of gratitude whether saying thank you or keeping a gratitude journal can improve empathy, interpersonal relationships, stress, anxiety, and depression bringing people more happiness in daily life and even in some cases reducing feelings of pain.

“If someone goes through life just being thankful for the little things they’re going to see all the positivity around them, it’s huge,” Stampley said. “That’s one reason why I’m so positive and thankful for little things, because I’ve been in situations that aren’t positive. I really don’t take things for granted.” 

Many practices related to maintaining a positive mindset such as manifesting and gratitude can also be associated with some form of spirituality. Some define spirituality as being concerned with the spirit rather than material things, some define it as a belief that there is something bigger than everyone that connects everyone, and some connect the idea of spirituality with religion. While acts like gratitude can relate to spiritual or religious acts like prayer, positive practices are separate from religious ideas, and one does not need to be religious to practice different forms of positivity.

“Spirituality means different things for different people,” Stampley said. “For a lot of people it means religion, but you can manifest and meditate and spend time alone for non religious reasons. Just thinking about the bigger things in life, besides the daily grind is important.”

Having a positive attitude can affect an individual’s mental health, but Michigan State University Extension writer Ann Chastain also states that those surrounding a person with a positive attitude can be affected by it as well.

“Positivity is just the act of being positive to not only yourself, but to others,” Hartono said. “It’s important to be mentally aware that you’re in that mindset of being positive and that you should act that way to other people, because other people can be affected by how you’re feeling, whether you’re positive or negative that day. You need to be aware that other people can feel what you’re feeling, especially with empathy being a sense on people’s emotions. I think positivity is just keeping yourself in check so you don’t affect others with your thoughts.”