What you take matters. How you take it matters more.

When people add something new to their routine—a prescription, a supplement, or an over-the-counter medication—they usually know what it is and why they’re taking it. What they often don’t know is how to take it.

This matters more than most people realize. Many medications and supplements underperform not because they’re ineffective, but because they’re taken in ways that limit how well they work. That’s why routine is one of the first things I look at when I evaluate a client’s regimen. How you take each pill, capsule, powder, injection, or IV affects not only how that individual piece performs, but how well the entire routine works together.

Specifically, there are four things I look at when I evaluate how someone is using a medication or supplement: timing, pairing, formulation, and consistency.

Timing matters for other medications, too. Certain antibiotics, especially ciprofloxacin and doxycycline, can bind to minerals like calcium, iron, and magnesium and become harder for the body to absorb. Used too close to a multivitamin, antacid, or calcium supplement, they can become significantly less effective.

Even supplements that seem relatively straightforward can work better or worse, depending on timing. Magnesium, for example, is often used to support relaxation and sleep, but it tends to be most helpful when taken in the evening, ideally 30 minutes to an hour before bed.

Vitamin C and collagen are another good example. Collagen powder gives your body amino acids, but your body still has to assemble those amino acids into usable collagen and it can't do that step without vitamin C. Take collagen without enough vitamin C, and your body won't have what it needs to build new collagen.

Glutathione is a good example. It’s a tripeptide: three amino acids linked together. Since amino acids are the building blocks of protein, your stomach treats glutathione like food protein and breaks much of it down before your body has a chance to absorb it. For this reason, a standard capsule may deliver far less active glutathione than the label suggests. Liposomal glutathione is packaged differently: the glutathione is wrapped in a thin layer of fat, which helps protect it as it moves through the digestive tract and improves how much your body can absorb.

Magnesium illustrates the importance of form in a slightly different way. Three of the most common forms, magnesium glycinate, citrate, and oxide, all provide magnesium, but they're absorbed differently, tolerated differently, and tend to be used for different purposes. Magnesium glycinate is often better tolerated and commonly used to support relaxation and sleep, while citrate is more often used to support digestion.

Probiotics, vitamin D, and omega-3s are good examples. These aren’t interventions you take once and feel immediately. Their benefits accumulate over time, and what I often see is that people stop too soon or take them too inconsistently to evaluate whether they’re helping at all.

If no one’s ever shown you how to make the most of your medications and supplements, you're not alone! Most people are told what to take, but not how to take it in a way that gives it the best chance to work. This is a crucial gap in care.

You probably don’t need more added to your regimen. What you do need is someone to look at everything you’re already taking and figure out what’s helping and what isn’t. The goal isn't a packed medicine cabinet. It's a routine that's effective, efficient, and built to work for your body.