I often experience what I think of as fragmentation of the mind. A decohering of focus. A state in which I am thinking of a million things in little bursts one after another and am unable to do anything about any of them, since if I started doing anything about one of them, I'd be distracted with the other 1 million - 1 things in my head.

I hate being in this state of mind, and as I said, often find myself in it. I'd like to consider the following 3 questions as a way to minimize my time feeling this way.

1. What causes fragmentation?
2. What can be done to defragment when one realizes they are in a fragmented state?
3. What can be done to armor the mind so that it resists fragmentation even in the presence of fragmenters?

What causes fragmentation?

Things I've noticed to cause me fragmentation:

1. Using my smartphone, in any capacity, strictly productive or otherwise.
2. Reading NAFT (news, articles, forums, twitter) at any time at any place on any electronic device.
3. Drinking caffeine. Any effectual dose of caffeine, which I define as green tea strength or greater, will cause my brain to lose focus ability. I continue to drink it however, as without it, my brain feels as if it is running at 20% capacity.
4. Thinking too much. Considering too many things in a day. If I think about too many things in a day I can fragment. Even if many of the thoughts were hours ago, the remnants will haunt my mind. Things accumulate.

What can be done to defragment?

When you find yourself mentally spinning in the whirlpool, unable to get out of the dangerous currents, what do you do?

One stupidly simple thing that I have found is to take a short nap. This works because if I go unconscious for a short while, the mind-hurricane will slow down. I may still feel the echos of anxiety and thought-paralysis when I wake up, but they are only echoes, and I can navigate around them. It is easy for me to take a nap when I realize I'm fragmented, as I'm usually mentally exhausted from being in that state. I go to my room, and open the blinds: I don't want it to be dark as my brain will think it's evening when I end my nap. I set a timer on my phone for 25 minutes. Knowing that I have timeboxed the nap lets me fully relax once I lay down. I give myself permission to think about whatever I want, and I usually drift off for 5-10 minutes at the end, which is what I'm going for: the brief relief of unconsciousness to reset me.

Another method is to write down (physically, with pen and paper) everything that I'm thinking of. I envision this as if my mind were a lightbulb surrounded by a horde of moths, which I one-by-one capture and pin to my moth corkboard, until they are all pinned down. I can then persuade myself to not give a shit about many of them, and figure out action plans for others (or at least next steps). This allows me to focus on just a couple things in the present/near-term moments.

A cousin to the nap method is to read an engrossing story. I suppose it could be non-fiction, but few non-fiction books swallow my mind whole like a good novel can. The nap method works by taking you to the Null Existence Universe. This method works by taking you to the Very Definitely Some Other Universe Containing None Of Your Problems Universe, and so I think of these two methods as cousins. I have to read for 20-25 minutes to get all of the distractions and thought-moths to properly drop out of my consciousness & its periphery (consciousness periphery: not in the front of your mind, but not on the backburner either. A kind of middle-mind space.) There is the risk that I get caught up in the story and read for an hour or two. Thankfully, I am always willing to risk accidentally reading for an hour or two.

EDIT: Months later, I've realized there is another defraggmenter, so obvious it hurts me to know I didn't think of it immediately: exercise. Especially something that gets your heartbeat and lungs working for an extended period of time. I've taken to going for 90min+ hikes at a local state park every other day or so, and found that to aid defragmentation greatly.

What can be done to armor the mind so that it resists fragmentation?

Avoid fragmenters.

This may be the only way to not fragment. The idea of armoring your mind to resist fragmentation may be a futile one. It may not be possible to experience fragmenters and be unfragmented, the same way you can't stab yourself with a knife and not bleed. Telling myself I can "armor" against fragmentation and charge headlong into it is probably like being an alcoholic and telling myself I'll only have one drink at the party since my willpower is so developed. Hah, what a joke.

Don't consume NAFT.
Don't consume (too much) caffeine.
Don't mindlessly cellphone (used here as a verb: To Cellphone).

Each of these things is its own problem entirely, and wildly outside the scope of this bit, and so I end it here.