How can I optimize render times for complex scenes without sacrificing too much quality?

Hi everyone, I’m currently working on a personal 3D project and I’ve run into a render issue that I hope someone here can help me with.
I’m using Blender, and while rendering a scene with volumetric lighting and multiple reflective surfaces, my render times have increased drastically—even small changes take forever to preview or finalize. I’ve tried lowering the samples and using denoising, but the quality drops too much.

Has anyone dealt with a similar situation or have tips for optimizing renders without losing too much visual fidelity?
Any advice or links to useful resources would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!