Excessive RSS feed requests causing server load

Hello,

I run a WordPress news website and I’m trying to reduce excessive RSS feed requests that may be contributing to PHP-FPM overload.

After analyzing my access logs over a few days, I found approximately:

104,500 RSS-related requests.

76,000 requests to individual post feeds (/post-slug/feed/).

17,600 requests to tag feeds.

5,200 requests to category feeds.

I would like to keep the main RSS feed (/feed/), category feeds, tag feeds and author feeds accessible, while reducing unnecessary requests to individual post/comment feeds.

I tested an .htaccess rule that returned HTTP 410 for individual post feeds, with exceptions for selected crawlers, including Googlebot. The rule worked technically, but a few hours after implementing it, I noticed a significant drop in Google Analytics traffic, especially on articles that had previously been performing well. I cannot confirm whether this was related to the rule or simply normal Google Discover traffic fluctuations.

My questions are:

What is the safest WordPress-compatible way to reduce or disable individual post/comment RSS feeds without affecting the main, category, tag and author feeds?

Could returning HTTP 410 for individual post feeds negatively affect Google Discover, Google Search or content syndication?

I would appreciate any recommendations or best practices.

Thank you.