I have been trying to gain more control over affective aspects of my being recently. There are various trivial ways that work out really well to swing your mind one way or other. I like grouping them all under 'talking to people'. For the why, a line from a recent read, The Noonday Demon, comes to my mind:
Thinking seems to me less persuasive evidence of being than does choosing.
Many aspects of controlling your mind, under mildly severe circumstances, are solved problems. For such problems, we are mostly doing the 'choosing' act by selecting whether or not to go ahead with a solution. As an example, you might already know writing helps, it goes down to the choice of employing that help.
The 'talking to people' group has a bunch of trivial acts with direct affective knobs which are kicked in action just by choosing. You choose to talk to someone. You choose to go out for a walk. You choose what to feel. Thinking here is secondary at best.