I recently rediscovered (I've known about this for years but never done anything with it) a technique. Not sure what category of technique you could call it; maybe a neural priming technique

Anyway, it's really easy: just count up extremely slowly in your head. Alternatively, count extremely quickly. Along these lines you can also do a certain movement pattern (eg: move each finger to a thumb sequentially) really slowly or quickly. Also moving your eyes left and right slowly or quickly seems to work. With any of these, the slower / quicker the better

As with any of these sort of neural priming techniques, the effect is that some of the qualities of the technique fold over for a time into other things. In this case, slowly counting up primes you for slower behaviors later. It's *really* effective though when you're already in a fast thinking / doing mode and want to slow down. So you count up slowly and that cools off whatever neurological process is keeping you in fast mode (apparently)

In many cases, certain sets of tasks require slower, more contemplative or thoughtful, system 2 -kind of action; and some require faster, more reflexive, system 1 -kind of action. When programming in particular, I find I'll go from implementing an idea -- which usually goes pretty quickly and comes out easily -- in fast mode, but then I need to slow it down when trying to come up with novel solutions to a new problem. Staying in fast mode when I need to stay in slow mode is irritating, and slow mode when I should be in fast mode is massively inefficient and makes me go off on tangents

I wish I could say what the mechanism why this (apparently) works is, but I'm not sure, and can't say definitively anyway because I'm not a brain scientist or whatever