diff --git a/app/vmselect/netstorage/netstorage.go b/app/vmselect/netstorage/netstorage.go
index 5e5b555afa..02f1a475db 100644
--- a/app/vmselect/netstorage/netstorage.go
+++ b/app/vmselect/netstorage/netstorage.go
@@ -1365,9 +1365,11 @@ func (tbfw *tmpBlocksFileWrapper) RegisterAndWriteBlock(mb *storage.MetricBlock,
 	if err != nil {
 		return err
 	}
-	metricName := bytesutil.InternBytes(mb.MetricName)
+	// Do not intern mb.MetricName, since it leads to increased memory usage.
+	// See https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/issues/3692
+	metricName := mb.MetricName
 	m := tbfw.ms[workerID]
-	addrs := m[metricName]
+	addrs := m[string(metricName)]
 	if addrs == nil {
 		addrs = newBlockAddrs()
 	}
@@ -1376,8 +1378,9 @@ func (tbfw *tmpBlocksFileWrapper) RegisterAndWriteBlock(mb *storage.MetricBlock,
 		// An optimization for big number of time series with long names: store only a single copy of metricNameStr
 		// in both tbfw.orderedMetricNamess and tbfw.ms.
 		orderedMetricNames := tbfw.orderedMetricNamess[workerID]
-		orderedMetricNames = append(orderedMetricNames, metricName)
-		m[metricName] = addrs
+		metricNameStr := string(metricName)
+		orderedMetricNames = append(orderedMetricNames, metricNameStr)
+		m[metricNameStr] = addrs
 		tbfw.orderedMetricNamess[workerID] = orderedMetricNames
 	}
 	return nil
diff --git a/docs/CHANGELOG.md b/docs/CHANGELOG.md
index 5db8fbda20..2336c390d6 100644
--- a/docs/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/docs/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -25,7 +25,8 @@ The following tip changes can be tested by building VictoriaMetrics components f
 * FEATURE: [vmalert](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmalert.html): log number of configration files found for each specified `-rule` command-line flag.
 * FEATURE: [vmalert enterprise](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmalert.html): concurrently [read config files from S3, GCS or S3-compatible object storage](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmalert.html#reading-rules-from-object-storage). This significantly improves config load speed for cases when there are thousands of files to read from the object storage.
 
-* BUGFIX: fix a bug, which could lead to incomplete or empty results for heavy queries selecting tens of thousands of time series. See [this pull request](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/pull/3946).
+* BUGFIX: vmstorage: fix a bug, which could lead to incomplete or empty results for heavy queries selecting tens of thousands of time series. See [this pull request](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/pull/3946).
+* BUGFIX: vmselect: reduce memory usage and CPU usage when performing heavy queries. See [this issue](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/issues/3692).
 * BUGFIX: [vmagent](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html): fix panic when [writing data to Kafka](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/vmagent.html#writing-metrics-to-kafka). The panic has been introduced in [v1.88.0](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/CHANGELOG.html#v1880).
 * BUGFIX: prevent from possible `invalid memory address or nil pointer dereference` panic during [background merge](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#storage). The issue has been introduced at [v1.85.0](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/CHANGELOG.html#v1850). See [this issue](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/issues/3897).
 * BUGFIX: [vmui](https://docs.victoriametrics.com/#vmui): stop showing `Please enter a valid Query and execute it` error message on the first load of vmui.