Store owners aren't the only ones concerned with finding the perfect spot in which to situate their stuff. Researchers in a wide variety of fields know that how you organize your environment--from where you stand in fitness class to the place you choose to store your meds--has a surprising effect on everything from your weight to your chances of staying well. In other words, when it comes to how you feel, it's not just what you do, it's where you do it.
Here, surprisingly bad locales for your health--and the best places to optimize it.
1. To keep your toothbrush
The worst place: Bathroom sink
There's nothing wrong with the sink itself--but it's awfully chummy with the toilet. There are 3.2 million microbes per square inch in the average toilet bowl, according to germ expert Chuck Gerba, PhD, a professor of environmental microbiology at the University of Arizona. When you flush, aerosolized toilet funk is propelled as far as 6 feet, settling on the floor, the sink, and your toothbrush.
Best place: "Unless you like rinsing with toilet water, keep your toothbrush behind closed doors--in the medicine cabinet or a nearby cupboard," Gerba says.
2. To stash sneakers and flip-flops
The worst place: Bedroom closet
Walking through your house in shoes you wear outside is a great way to track in allergens and contaminants. One study found that lawn chemicals were tracked inside the house for a full week after application, concentrated along the traffic route from the entryway. Shoes also carry in pollen and other allergens.
Best place: Reduce exposure by slipping off rough-and-tumble shoes by the door; store them in a basket or under an entryway bench. If your pumps stay off the lawn, they can make the trip to the bedroom--otherwise, carry them.
3. To fall asleep
The worst place: Under piles of blankets
Being overheated can keep you from nodding off, researchers say: A natural nighttime drop in your core temperature triggers your body to get drowsy. To ease your way to sleep, help your body radiate heat from your hands and feet, says Helen Burgess, PhD, assistant director of the Biological Rhythms Research Laboratory at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.
Best place: Don socks to dilate the blood vessels in the extremities--then take the socks off and let a foot stick out from under the blankets.
4. To cool leftovers
The worst place: In the refrigerator
Placing a big pot of hot edibles directly into the fridge is a recipe for uneven cooling and possibly food poisoning, says O. Peter Snyder Jr., PhD, president of the Hospitality Institute of Technology and Management in St. Paul, MN. The reason: It can take a long time for the temperature in the middle of a big container to drop, creating a cozy environment for bacteria.
Best place: You can safely leave food to cool on the counter for up to an hour after cooking, Snyder says. Or divvy up hot food into smaller containers and then refrigerate--it'll cool faster.
5. To post a workout reminder
The worst place: Stuck on your post-it laden fridge
A visual nudge can help--but only if you notice it, says Paddy Ekkekakis, PhD, an exercise psychologist at Iowa State University. In one study, a sign urging people to use the stairs rather than the nearby escalator increased the number of people who climbed on foot by nearly 200%.
Best place: Put your prompt near a decision point, Ekkekakis says--keep your pile of Pilates DVDs next to the TV; put a sticky note on your steering wheel to make sure you get to your after-work kickboxing class. Just remember: The boost you get from a reminder is usually short-term, so change the visuals often.
6. To sit on an airplane
The worst place: The rear
Avoid this section if you're prone to airsickness, says retired United Airlines pilot Meryl Getline, who operates the aviation website fromthecockpit.com. "Think of a seesaw," Getline says. "The farther from the center you are, the more up-and-down movement you experience." Because the tail of the plane tends to be longer than the front, "that's the bumpiest of all," she says.
Best place: "The smoothest option is sitting as close to the wing as you can," says Getline.
7. To pick up a prescription
The worst place: Pharmacy drive-thru
In a survey of 429 pharmacists, respondents ranked drive-thru windows high among distracting factors that can lead to prescription processing delays and errors, says survey author Sheryl Szeinbach, PhD, professor of pharmacy practice and administration at Ohio State University.
Best place: If you don't want to give up the convenience of a rolling pickup, be sure to check that both drug and dose are what the doctor ordered.
8. To set your handbag
The worst place: The kitchen counter
Your fancy handbag is a major tote for microbes: Gerba and his team's swabs showed up to 10,000 bacteria per square inch on purse bottoms--and a third of the bags tested positive for fecal bacteria! A woman's carryall gets parked in some nasty spots: on the floor of the bus, beneath the restaurant table--even on the floor of a public bathroom.
Best place: Put your bag in a drawer or on a chair, Gerba says--anywhere except where food is prepared or eaten.
9. To use a public bathroom
The worst place: The stall in the middle
The center stall has more bacteria than those on either end, according to unpublished data collected by Gerba. No, you won't catch an STD from a toilet seat. But you can contract all manner of ills if you touch a germy toilet handle and then neglect to wash your hands thoroughly.
Best place: Pick a stall all the way left or right to minimize your germ exposure.
10. To stand during fitness classes
The worst place: Front and center
You might think that you'd want to be near the mirrors so you can check your form, but your sweat session will be more motivating if your view is obstructed, suggests a 2003 study at McMasters University. In that research, 58 sedentary women all exercised at similar intensity levels. But those who did it in a mirrored room reported feeling more anxious about their body's imperfections after their workout than women who sweated without mirrors distracting them.
Best place: Stand in the middle, toward the back of the class for a less conscious workout.
11. For a nighttime reading light
The worst place: Overhead
These fixtures put out relatively bright light--enough to significantly delay the body's secretion of melatonin, showed a 2000 study. That can wreck your night, since rising melatonin levels are a major cue for your body to prepare for sleep.
Best place: Clip a low-power light directly to your novel. It will let you read but leave the room dark enough for your brain to transition into sleep mode.
12. To keep medicine
The worst place: The medicine cabinet
It's not uncommon for the temp in a steamy bathroom to reach 100°F--well above the recommended storage temperatures for many common drugs. The cutoff for the popular cholesterol drug Lipitor, for instance, is around 77°F.
Best place: Somewhere cool and dry, such as the pantry.
13. To put fruit before washing it
The worst place: The kitchen sink
Of all the household germ depots, the kitchen sink sees the most bacterial traffic--even more than the toilet, says Kelly Reynolds, PhD, a professor and environmental microbiologist at the University of Arizona.
Best place: Keep fruit on the counter until you run it under the water. If that perfect blueberry drops while you're washing it, pop it in the trash--not your mouth.
14. To use headphones
The worst place: On an airplane, train, or subway
Sure, music's a better traveling companion than your seatmate's cell phone conversation. But studies show that if you listen through a headset in a noisy environment, you probably crank the volume too high. Harvard researchers found that in reasonably quiet surroundings, volunteers tended to keep the volume at an ear-friendly level. But when the researchers added background noise--the loud rumble of an airplane cabin--80% boosted the volume as high as 89 decibels, a level that risks long-term hearing damage.
Best place: Wherever you don't have to blast your music to enjoy it. If you do, consider noise-canceling headphones--only 20% of listeners in the study who used a set got close to the danger zone.
15. To store coffee beans
The worst place: The refrigerator or freezer
Think that you're preserving freshness by stashing it in the fridge? Think again. Every time you take it out of the fridge or freezer, you expose it to fluctuating temperatures, which produces condensation. "The moisture leeches out flavor--it's like brewing a cup of coffee each time," says John McGregor, PhD, a professor in the department of food science and human nutrition at Clemson University.
Best place: Store your beans or grounds in an opaque, airtight container kept on the counter or in the pantry.
16. To watch TV
The worst place: Wherever you dine
Studies show that distraction is your waistline's enemy--it can keep you from noticing how much you're eating. In a 2006 study, volunteers ate faster when watching TV than while listening to music--consuming 71% more macaroni and cheese when watching a show.
If you have the tube on while cooking, turn it off before dinner at the kitchen table, and avoid being tempted into eating in front of the TV in the living room.
Best place: Up or down a flight of stairs or far away from the kitchen, so you have to "work" to get a snack--you'll be much less likely to munch.
