system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
How does chewing up a tablet compare to swallowing it whole?

When I was young, I used to have to chew up headache pills because I couldn't swallow them. 

Is it as effective to chew them up than swallow them whole? Why/why not?
gpt
Someone else posted that chewing them breaks the time release mechanism. This is only true if it has a time release mechanism, which the vast majority of tablets don't.

When you chew a tablet, it often increases the rate of absorption and can have a quicker onset. This is because partly because once you've chewed the tablet into smaller pieces there is more surface area on those pieces than the entire tablet in total, and as such it is easier for the body to process the drug. One drawback is that doing this may yield more than the intended amount into the body/brain/bloodstream at once and it may not last as long.

Another reason is that once you've chewed something up into a powder, it can coat the membranous parts of your mouth/throat/stomach lining and be much more quickly absorbed into your bloodstream.