How Do You Bring Your Mood Up When It's Down?

I had a bad night last night, starting when my knitting project went wrong (I'm not ready to talk about it) while the Bruins were falling behind, catching up, falling behind again. (The Bruins recovered and went on to win. I didn't.) The resultant mood got me thinking.

When life gets you down, what do you do to make yourself feel better?

Sometimes I'm at a loss to know what I can do to be happier, so I'm looking for ideas. (And if you're going to say that thinking about how lucky you are, or how much worse things could be, helps you out, well, that's nice for you, but I don't actually find that such thoughts make me feel the slightest bit better in a bad moment, and can even add guilt to the mix, so, you know, maybe don't go there.) Whether your mood is from an actual event or just unreasoned crabbiness, how do you rise above?

I have several methods myself, with varying success rates.

• Eating. I am a comfort eater, and a pint of Ben and Jerry's invariably makes me feel better. In the long run, this is good for neither the budget nor the waistline, but in the short run, it feels so good.
• Shopping. Can be fun, but again a potential budget problem.
• Knitting. This can be very soothing and comforting, unless of course the down mood was brought on by a knitting situation. When you finish the yarn-throwing, project-stomping snit, even knitting something else isn't going to help. Though wearing hand-knits does usually help.
  
• Reading. Picking up a book is a very successful distraction for me. Unfortunately, I can lose hours that way, resulting in sleep deprivation, and the problems tend to be right there waiting for me when I put the book down. Thus only a very short-term solution. Sometimes it's the best I can manage, though.
  
• Cats. Petting or cuddling a cat in a snuggly mood is very soothing. Unfortunately, cats being sentient creatures uncontrolled by one's desires mean that there isn't always a cat in a snuggly mood when you need one. The success rate also varies from cat to cat. Pan would get very upset if I was upset, which helped me to calm myself down. Harold, Carlos? Not so much.
  

Ideally, I'm looking for things that are not reliant on others, such as watching the Bruins, where my enjoyment depends largely on their performance. I can't make the Bruins win (or they would, far more often), any more than I can make a cat want to be on my lap.

I haven't had much luck with the idea that acting happier will make you actually happier, though research has indicated it is so. I don't disagree with the theory, but I have trouble putting it into practice. If I'm unhappy, but make myself smile at a coworker and have a pleasant exchange, it doesn't feel as though my mood is any better after. Unfortunately.

There are things that make me feel better, but that aren't readily available whenever I need them. I enjoy planning ahead for something fun, like a trip, but that isn't something I can just do to ease a bad day; I don't always have a trip coming up, and no amount of wishing makes it so. Same thing for playing with a baby, which tends to make me happy: not having one around makes this a challenge. Therefore, these aren't things I would put on my "bad-day, bad-mood, what can I do about it to feel better" list.

Suggestions?