World loading has been HORRIBLY slow

World loading in my 3-year-old experimental survival world has been nothing but problems from as early back as 1.16.100. I know that I don't use the best of devices, but prior to that patch, it was just a breeze to open up my world to my shopping district. Now, it's just a massive lag-spike, no response from the controls and the chunk loading is unbearably slow. I know that it was bound to get worse in 1.18, but not THIS bad - so bad to the point where you're always thinking 2 minutes ahead in the Nether due to how unresponsive and delayed the controls are. I understand that Minecraft has another big update that's being worked on, but please Mojang, FIX THIS.