Why do I reread emails so many times before sending?

That flicker of dread before you hit send is not about the email. It is about the fear that one wrong word will be read as the real you, careless or unkind. So you check five times, six times, hunting for a mistake that usually is not there. The email was fine at reading one. The other five were fear, not editing. Most people skim a two-line message in seconds and think nothing of it. The tone you agonize over rarely lands the way you imagine. You are holding yourself to a standard no reader is applying to you. That gap is where the ten minutes disappear. Try this with your next routine email: read it once, fix what is clearly wrong, and send it. Let the small discomfort come and pass. You will learn, message by message, that the world does not fall apart. That lesson is worth more than a perfect word.