Gut Health

The Best Time to Take Probiotics (Food & Supplements)

Does it matter when you take probiotics to make them more effective? We'll answer this question with specifics regarding the best time to take probiotics whether they are in food or supplements.

Bacteria is with you every day—and not just when you touch a dirty grocery store cart or someone nearby sneezes. Even right now, there are millions of bacteria living on your skin and in your gut. Sounds scary? It isn’t!

It’s perfectly natural and, more importantly, these microscopic organisms are crucial for your best health and well-being.

Surprising, but true: not all bacteria are bad. In fact, there are trillions of beneficial bacteria, known as probiotics, that help keep your body functioning at its prime. And supporting your best digestive, immune, and even emotional health requires that you have plenty of these good guys on hand (and in your body) at all times.

Not sure about the best way to introduce healthy bacteria (probiotics) into your system? Read on to find out more about probiotic foods and supplements, as well as specifics regarding when to take probiotics.

Plus, we’ll give you a “cheat sheet” of our favorite suggestions for adding probiotic-friendly foods to your daily diet.

How Your Gut Microbiome Works

Before we start exploring the world of probiotics, let’s look at their home: your gut microbiome.

As we mentioned, your body is absolutely teeming with microbes. These include beneficial (or “good”) bacteria and pathogenic (“bad”) bacteria that occur naturally in your body.

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Two of the most well-known strains of probiotics are Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium. They live on your skin and in your mouth, nose, and gut.

Your gut microbiome is especially important because it houses the vast majority of your body’s bacterial colonies, beneficial and pathogenic.

But your gut has limited space, so the good and bad bacteria are often locked in a power struggle for “real estate.”

When one type of bacteria flourishes, it’ll starve and crowd out the other type.

Ideally, your beneficial bacteria will outnumber the harmful bacteria in quantity and quality. This helps you maintain strong gut health, supports your immune system, and promotes your overall health and well-being

Unfortunately, the opposite is more often the case.

When pathogenic bacteria colonies outnumber your probiotics, this imbalance is known as dysbiosis, and it can negatively impact your digestive health, slow down your immune response, and lead to a number of physical, emotional, and mental health issues.

How do you overcome this imbalance, and avoid it in the future?

This is where probiotic foods and supplements can help.

Young woman sanitizing her hands before snack at a restaurant

Why Do You Need Probiotics?

To truly understand how probiotics can help, let’s look at how the bacteria in the human body have changed drastically over the past decades.

If you lived in a “perfect” world the way Mother Nature designed it…

The soil would be microbially rich with critically important, gut-health-promoting beneficial bacteria. Plants would grow organically, free of chemicals and toxins, and be naturally covered with health-promoting bacterial strains.

Every bite of food you consumed would provide beneficial bacteria to your body, where they could onc