Take the health scares out of Halloween

Halloween night’s scares should all be in good fun. We’ve got the ingredients for making the celebration a little less frightful.

Daylight Saving Timeends on Oct. 31, which seems like a good thing — an extra hour on the hardest partying night of the year is the best treat, right? Maybe. It’s easy to let the night take you where it wants, but you could end up getting sick from drinking longer than normal, or being tired enough to fall asleep on the train and end up in Coney Island (and surge pricing is the ultimate party foul.)

While you do have Sunday to sleep off bad decisions, Monday morning will be a lot less cruel if you turn down at your usual 3 a.m., rather than when the clock says it’s 3 a.m.

You don’t have to give up Halloween’s most hallowed tradition. If going to a club or other big event isn’t your speed, organize your own party. The cocktails are easy — a little cranberry juiceand anything is bloody, swap the tequila for mezcal and you’ve got instant smoke and spice — and instead of setting out bowls of candy, ask everyone to bring a home-baked treat. Set up all the pans and plates on various tables and surfaces around your home, and you’ve got adult trick-or-treating.

Don’t make a decision on Halloween that you could regret forever. Arecent study out of Japanfound that several brands of non-prescription costume contacts contained chlorine and other harmful chemicals, likely from the dyes used on the lenses.

Contacts that don’t fit your eyes can also scratch the cornea, which can cause infection and blindness. Get a prescription from an ophthalmologist, or find a different accessory.

If you’re walking home and feel unsafe but can’t rely on calling someone, there’s an app that will let a friend virtually walk with you. Tell theCompanionapp(free,iOS and Android) your destination, and itcan ping one of your contacts and send them a link to track you on a map.

If anything happens — you make a wrong turn, start running or the headphones are pulled out of the jack — the app turns the phone into a personal alarm system with loud sounds to scare off criminals and can even call 911. The person at the other end of the app also gets an alert.