Let the message sit for an hour. Most things that feel like fires are just smoke from someone else’s toaster.

Urgency in a message is frequently borrowed from the sender’s state rather than from the situation. Their panic transmits instantly and their perspective does not, so you get the alarm without the context that would let you weigh it, and reacting inside that first hour means reacting to their feeling. Time restores the proportion.

When something arrives hot, put it down for an hour before answering. Check whether anything is genuinely on fire or whether someone is simply upset. Most of it resolves or shrinks considerably by the time you look again.