The Healthiest Time To Do Everything

Timing is everything, especially when it comes to your health. Proper planning can mean the difference between getting sick and staying healthy.

Consider that a flu shot offers the most protection if you get it in late October or early November, before flu season gets under way, or that a cold sore will heal 18 to 21 percent faster if you take a dose of antiviral medication as soon as you feel the first tingle.

Before you make another health move, check the these great tips from Prevention, and then consult your watch or calendar. You can't afford not to.

1. Pay bills or do a crossword between 10 and 11 AM or 8 and 9 PM
According to our circadian rhythms, that's when we're maximally alert. Try not to waste a minute—the brain boost lasts only for about an hour.

2. Take a nap or drink a cup of coffee at 2 PM
The dip in body temperature that helps ease you into sleep at night also occurs midday, which is why afternoons can be so unproductive. But if you can catch a catnap around 2 PM (the slump usually hits between 1 and 3 PM), it should boost your alertness for several hours. Ten minutes will do the trick—nod off for more than 20 and you may wake feeling groggy.

Midafternoon is also a good time for "strategic caffeine use." If you don't exceed a cup or two per day, caffeine works phenomenally well at increasing your alertness. This should be your last cup of coffee for the day, though—any caffeine consumed within 7 hours of bedtime can disrupt your sleep.

3. Swallow your multivitamin during a meal
Your body absorbs vitamins better when you take them with food. This will minimize the potential for stomach upset, too, and make you more likely to remember your multi every day.

4. Take birth control or heart pills before bed
If yoU take blood pressure medication before turning in, it will still be working by early morning, which is the time associated with a 30 to 50% increased risk of heart attacks and strokes, according to researchers at the Mayo Clinic. And because the liver revs up cholesterol production overnight, you'll maximize the lipid-lowering ability of heart medication if you take them before hitting the sack. Popping your birth control pill at night makes sense because you'll sleep through any nausea, a common side effect.

5. Fill your prescription midmonth
Drugstores get busy at the beginning of the month, when welfare and Social Security checks hit people's mailboxes. You're not merely saving yourself from a longer line: Fatalities due to pharmacy-related medication errors rise by as much as 25% at the beginning of the month, found a study at the University of California, San Diego, and Tufts University School of Medicine.

6. Schedule big dental procedures for January or February
Snagging the time slot you want is easiest in January and February, which are slow months in dental offices. The busiest times: the end of the year (when patients scramble to maximize their dental insurance benefits) and summer, when offices fill up with kids and college students.

7. Plan your mammogram for the week after your period
Your breasts will be least tender then, which will make the procedure less painful, advises the American Cancer Society. The scan will also be more accurate: A mammogram taken during the second half of your menstrual cycle is twice as likely to miss a lurking cancer, showed a Canadian study of 7,000 women who had taken or were currently taking birth control pills or were on hormone therapy. Remember to have a mammogram every year once you turn 40; if you have a strong family history of breast cancer, your doc may suggest starting as young as 30.

For more information, pick up the latest copy of Prevention Magazine or visit www.prevention.com/healthiesttime.