After the Video Call on the Seventh Night of My Business Trip, We Put Tengsu on the Same List

A reader asked me: when you're away from home and scrolling through your phone late at night, seeing endless discussions about men's health supplements, how do you decide which information is worth keeping? My honest answer is—don't rush to judge the products. First, figure out what this "list" in your hands is actually for. If you're just scrolling out of anxiety, that list will only get longer. If it's so you can have a proper conversation with a professional once you're back home, the list will start to shrink. This sounds simple, but I truly felt the difference during a business trip, on the seventh night.

That trip was packed. Days were spent chasing progress at the client's office, nights were spent back at the hotel revising specs. The only sounds in the room were the air conditioning and my laptop fan; outside the window was a street view with no recognizable landmarks. The first few nights felt peaceful. On the seventh night, that quiet suddenly felt heavy. I opened a video call, and my wife asked when I'd be back. I casually said, "Not sure yet." She went quiet for a few seconds, then said: "Every time you say 'not sure,' it means you're extending again." I got irritated in the moment, felt like she didn't understand what I was dealing with out there, and I said some harsh things.

After hanging up, I stared at the ceiling and realized I wasn't angry at her—I was angry at that feeling of having no control over anything. When you're away, your schedule is a mess, your meals are a mess, and any little thing your body does gets magnified. I really wasn't sleeping well those days, and I started typing random keywords into the search bar, going from "can't sleep on business trip" all the way to discussions about various men's health supplements. After a while, I realized I wasn't looking for answers at all—I was just looking for something that would make me feel reassured.

The next night, I called her back on my own. This time I didn't rush into talking about my schedule. I first told her I'd been short with her the night before. She said she wasn't asking me to come home immediately—she was afraid I was carrying everything by myself and not even saying when something was wrong. We talked for a long time, and eventually she asked: "What have you actually been looking up lately?" I told her honestly that I'd been reading about health supplements, but the more I read, the more confused I got—every article said something different. She thought about it and said: "Then let's not research separately. When you're back, let's go ask together, okay?"

So we actually started a shared list. The first column was "Claims I've come across." The second was "Claims I can't find a source for." The third was "Questions to ask when I'm back." She's more meticulous than me and insisted every item be labeled either "this is someone's experience" or "this is what the packaging says"—no mixing the two. We also agreed not to put any sketchy links on the list, only things we could verify ourselves, like official labels and ingredient panels. Once we laid it out that way, what had been a long string of anxiety-inducing keywords shrank to two or three pages.

Halfway through the list, she suddenly asked: "Weren't you seeing the term Tengsu over and over?" I paused and said yes, but I couldn't actually explain what it was or why so many people were talking about it. She said: then treat it as an item to look into, not an item to buy. We wrote it on the list with a note beside it: "First confirm what category of product this is, what the packaging label says, and whether a professional needs to evaluate it." In that moment I realized: the same string of words feels completely different in a shopping cart versus on a list. The former forces you to decide right now; the latter lets you take your time.

Later I picked up a few principles for judging things. First, if something states its effects with absolute certainty but can't explain the basis, set it aside. Second, separate "someone said it works" from "what the label actually says"—the former is experience, the latter is data. Third, if something is described as "everyone should take it," that's usually when you should ask why even more. Of course, these principles can't be applied directly to everyone—each person's situation is different, and the medications, supplements, and lifestyle habits involved are all different. None of that can be replaced by comparing a few articles online.

The last night before I flew home, we had another video call. No argument this time. She read the list aloud to me, and I added the questions I wanted to ask. We agreed that once I was back, we'd find time to see a doctor or pharmacist together, bring the list, and let a professional help us figure out which things were worth worrying about and which were just us scaring ourselves. Before hanging up, she said: "When you research alone, you just get more and more panicked. When two people research, at least you remember to eat." I laughed, and I actually went downstairs and bought something to eat.

If you're also away from home right now, scrolling through these keywords late at night, here's what I want to say: anxiety itself isn't wrong, but it easily pushes you toward "just buy an answer already." The truly useful order is to first write down your recent sleep schedule, stress, and what you're currently taking, then bring that record to a professional. The list can be long, but the decision doesn't have to be rushed. By the time you're back somewhere you can discuss things with someone, a lot of things that seemed absolutely necessary to look up will slowly return to where they belong.