Once you are following a conversation, you may find that the notifications become too intrusive. To manage this, click on your profile picture and select Account & Privacy Settings
Click on the Followed Content link on the right hand side
This will list both your categories and conversations.
Click on the dark blue bell on the right hand side, and you will see notification settings similar to general notifications
Uncheck the boxes for any of the options shown. This can be just comments, just posts, or both.
You can also choose to unfollow that category from here by clicking the button at the bottom of the pop-up
Repeat for each of the blue bells to remove those individual email sends.
*Note - as a post author or contributor, you will continue to be alerted when someone responds unless you have opted out under Notifications