The antidote to this mental calcification is meditation. As I've become more skilled at meditation, I view things less through my old filters and more as they are, in this moment.
To the original poster, I'm not so sure meditation would be the cure-all for all of the problems mentioned. I could see it helping with calming a mind overflowing with ancient "context". But the author indicated that this manifests more as slowness than with anxiety.
Sounds awful. How do you debug?