Low blood pressure, defined as a reading below 90/60 mmHg, can often be raised through a combination of increased fluids, more salt, compression garments, and changes to how you move and eat. For many people, these lifestyle adjustments are enough to reduce or eliminate symptoms like dizziness, fatigue, and fainting. When they’re not, medications can help.
Drink More Fluids Throughout the Day
Dehydration is one of the most common and fixable causes of low blood pressure. When your blood volume drops, there’s less fluid pushing against your artery walls, and pressure falls. The British Heart Foundation recommends six to eight glasses of fluid per day as a baseline, but if you’re dealing with low blood pressure symptoms, you may need more, especially in hot weather or after exercise.
Water is the simplest option, but drinks with electrolytes can be more effective because sodium helps your body retain fluid rather than pass it straight through. Drinking a full glass of water 15 to 30 minutes before standing up in the morning can make a noticeable difference if your worst symptoms hit early in the day.
Increase Your Salt Intake
This is the rare situation where eating more salt is medically helpful. Sodium pulls water into your bloodstream, increasing blood volume and raising pressure. For people with orthostatic hypotension (the kind where you get dizzy standing up), guidelines from several cardiology societies recommend 2,400 to 4,000 mg of sodium per day, and some specialists push that range even higher for conditions like POTS.
To put that in perspective, the average American already consumes around 3,400 mg of sodium daily. If your intake is lower than that, adding salt to meals, snacking on salted nuts or pretzels, or drinking broth can help. One study found that adding roughly 2,400 mg of supplemental sodium per day for two months improved both standing tolerance and blood flow regulation in people who had been excreting less than 3,900 mg daily. If you have heart failure or kidney disease, talk to your doctor before increasing salt, since those conditions require the opposite approach.
Use Physical Counter-Pressure Techniques
When you feel lightheaded or sense your blood pressure dropping, specific body movements can push blood back toward your heart and brain within seconds. These are worth memorizing so you can use them anywhere.
- Leg crossing: Cross one leg over the other and squeeze the muscles in your legs, abdomen, and buttocks. Hold until your symptoms pass.
- Arm tensing: Grip one hand with the other and pull them against each other without letting go. This creates tension through your upper body that raises pressure quickly.
- Hand grip: Squeeze a rubber ball (or any firm object) in your dominant hand for as long as you can or until symptoms fade.
These techniques work because tensing large muscle groups compresses the veins running through them, forcing blood back into central circulation. They’re especially useful in situations where you can’t sit or lie down immediately.
Change How You Stand Up
Orthostatic hypotension, the blood pressure drop that happens when you go from lying or sitting to standing, is one of the most common forms of low blood pressure. It’s defined as a drop of 20 mmHg or more in systolic pressure (the top number) or 10 mmHg or more in diastolic pressure (the bottom number) within a few minutes of standing.
The fix is simple but requires building a habit. When getting out of bed, sit on the edge of the mattress for a full minute before standing. Flex and pump your calf muscles while still seated to get blood moving upward. When you do stand, do it slowly. If symptoms hit while you’re already upright, squatting, marching in place, or rising onto your tiptoes can help by activating your leg muscles and pushing blood toward your head.
Eat Smaller, Lower-Carb Meals
Blood pressure commonly drops after eating because your body diverts blood flow to your digestive system. Large meals make this worse, and high-carbohydrate meals make it worse still. This is called postprandial hypotension, and it’s particularly common in older adults.
Switching from three large meals to six smaller ones spreads out the digestive demand so your blood pressure stays more stable. Keeping those meals lower in refined carbohydrates (less white bread, pasta, and sugary foods) also helps, since carbs trigger a stronger blood-flow shift to the gut than protein or fat do. If you notice your worst symptoms hit 30 to 60 minutes after eating, this pattern is likely playing a role.
Wear Compression Garments
Compression stockings prevent blood from pooling in your legs, which is one of the main reasons blood pressure drops when you stand. For low blood pressure, most specialists recommend waist-high stockings rated at 20 to 30 mmHg or 30 to 40 mmHg of pressure. Knee-high stockings help less because a significant amount of blood pools in the thighs and abdomen, not just the calves.
The higher the pressure rating, the more effective the garment, but also the harder it is to put on and the less comfortable it is to wear in warm weather. Starting at 20 to 30 mmHg is reasonable, moving up to 30 to 40 mmHg if symptoms persist. Abdominal binders can also help by compressing the large blood vessels in your torso.
Medications for Persistent Low Blood Pressure
When lifestyle changes aren’t enough, the most commonly prescribed medication is midodrine, which works by tightening blood vessels to increase resistance and raise pressure. It’s particularly effective at improving standing blood pressure. Because it wears off in about three hours, it’s typically taken two or three times a day, timed around when you’re most active and upright. It’s not taken before bed, since raising blood pressure while lying flat can cause problems.
Another option is fludrocortisone, which helps your kidneys retain sodium and water, increasing blood volume over time. Your doctor will choose based on whether your low blood pressure is mainly a blood-volume problem or a blood-vessel-tone problem, or some combination of both.
Symptoms That Need Urgent Attention
Mild dizziness when you stand up too fast is common and usually manageable. But certain symptoms alongside low blood pressure signal something more serious: fast, shallow breathing, confusion or trouble concentrating, unusual agitation or behavioral changes, and cold or clammy skin. These can indicate that your organs aren’t getting enough blood flow.
Falls are the biggest practical danger of untreated low blood pressure. Fainting while standing can lead to broken bones, concussions, and other serious injuries, particularly in older adults. If you’re fainting repeatedly or your symptoms are getting worse despite trying the strategies above, that pattern needs medical evaluation to rule out underlying causes like heart valve problems, adrenal insufficiency, or medication side effects.