Tips for Taking Your Supplements Consistently
It’s no secret that taking high-quality vitamins and supplements can improve your overall health. So whether you want to improve your mental health, sports performance, immune system, or general health, vitamins and supplements can support your needs.
While supplements can enhance your overall health, just buying them isn’t enough. For your vitamins to do their job, you need to take them consistently. Unfortunately, adding a new habit to your daily schedule can prove surprisingly challenging when you already have a booked calendar and set routine.
How to Make Your Supplements a Habit
If you’re struggling to remember to take your supplements, know you’re not alone. It’s always hard to form a new habit. We’ve compiled our foolproof tricks and techniques to get on a solid supplement schedule.
Keep Supplements in Plain Sight
Out of sight, out of mind isn’t just a colloquialism. If you want to take your vitamins, putting them in a place where you can’t miss seeing them is an easy way to ensure you don’t skip a dose.
Set Your Phone Alarm
Most of us never leave the house without our phones. Put your phone to work by setting up an alarm or reminder to take your supplements daily. With a daily electronic nudge, you’ll have no excuse for missing a dose.
Put Your Supplements on Your Calendar
If a phone alarm doesn’t work for you, add your supplement time to your calendar instead. Scheduling a five-minute block of time to take care of yourself is a fantastic way to ensure you’re getting your vitamins and some time to take a deep breath during a crazy day.
Organize Your Pills
Organize your supplements by day into a pill organizer at the start of the week. Then you’ll have everything laid out for you as the week unfolds. Place your pill organizer in your purse, briefcase, on your desk, or somewhere that keeps it available when it’s time to take your pills.
Pair Your Supplements with Another Habit
Look at what you do every day, and add taking your supplements to that task. Always start your day with a glass of water? Keep that day’s dose of pills next to your water glasses. Always read the morning paper? Add your supplement time to settling down with the morning news.
Use Sticky Notes
Sticky notes are a classic choice for reminders, and with good reason — they work! So put a sticky note in a spot where you can’t miss it, and remind yourself that you can’t forget your supplements either!
Buy an Extra Bottle
An alarm reminding you to take your pills when you’re at work doesn’t help you when they’re at home. Similarly, bringing your supplements to the office only to forget them on the weekends is a fast way to fall out of your routine. Instead, make sure you have your pills handy so that they’re available when you need them.
Ask for Help
Your friends and family want you to be healthy and may offer the push you need to remember your supplements with a quick text or a simple question. When the people around us know we’re working on something, they’re often happy to give you a hand.
Get the Most Out of Your Supplement Routine
When you consider the benefits of your supplements, it can be easier to find the right time to add them to your daily routine. Additionally, knowing the best ways to get the most out of your dosage can reinforce their importance in your schedule.
If you’re going to add supplements to your lifestyle, you might as well reap all of the benefits possible. So here are some ways to ensure your vitamins do their best work.
Take as Directed
Your supplement bottle provides vital information about when to take your pills and if they work best with or without food. This information is key to ensuring the best absorption.
Supplements intended for the morning may disrupt sleep if taken too late in the day, so understanding the dosage directions can keep you feeling your best.
Drink Your Water
Water plays a crucial part in disintegrating supplement capsules or tablets and breaking down water-soluble nutrients. So make sure you take your pills with a glass of water, and then keep drinking water throughout your day to stay hydrated.
Since hydration is vital to your overall health, pairing your supplements with a full glass of water will help you meet your hydration and supplement goals.
Store in a Cool, Dry Place
Supplements exposed to heat, humidity, and sunlight can lose their effectiveness and degrade faster. Keep your vitamins out of the bathroom and away from the kitchen sink, where humidity levels are higher. Don’t store them on a windowsill that exposes them to light and higher heat.
Choose a location that reminds you to take your supplements without compromising their integrity. For example, your office desk, bedroom nightstand, or kitchen table may all serve as good locations and keep your pills front and center in your life without lessening their effectiveness.
Don’t Double Up
There will always be days when everything goes awry, and you cannot take that day’s supplements. It happens. Just pick your routine back up the next day. Resist any temptation to double up on your doses when you do remember.
In the best case, your body will excrete the extra vitamins and minerals because it can’t use more than the intended amount, wasting your supplements. In the worst case, taking too much of your supplement can harm your health.
Building a New Routine Doesn’t Have to Be Hard
Forgetting to take your supplements can be frustrating, but the steps to incorporate your pills into your daily routine don’t have to be complicated.
Remembering can be as easy as moving where you store your pills or adding them to a regular daily task you never miss. Your supplements can’t do their job when forgotten in a medicine cabinet, so break them out and work them into your schedule today.
