If your blood pressure consistently reads below 90/60 mmHg and you’re dealing with dizziness, fatigue, or fainting, there are several effective ways to bring it up. The strategies range from immediate physical techniques that work in seconds to longer-term dietary and lifestyle changes that stabilize your blood pressure over weeks.
Drink Water First
One of the fastest and simplest ways to raise blood pressure is drinking water. About 16 ounces (roughly 480 mL) of plain water produces a measurable increase in blood pressure within five minutes of drinking it. The effect peaks around 30 to 35 minutes later and lasts for over an hour. A smaller amount, around 8 ounces, also works but produces a weaker response. This makes a glass or two of water an effective first move if you’re feeling lightheaded or know you’re about to stand for a long period.
Chronic dehydration is one of the most common and overlooked causes of low blood pressure. When your blood volume drops, there’s simply less fluid for your heart to pump, and pressure falls. Aim for consistent hydration throughout the day rather than catching up all at once.
Increase Your Salt Intake
For most people, the dietary advice is to limit sodium. But if you have low blood pressure, the opposite applies. Salt helps your body retain water, which increases blood volume and raises pressure. Medical guidelines for people with orthostatic hypotension (the kind where your pressure drops when you stand up) generally recommend 2,400 to 4,000 mg of sodium per day, with some specialists going as high as 4,000 to 8,000 mg for more severe cases. For context, the average American consumes about 3,400 mg daily.
Practical ways to add sodium include salting your food more liberally, eating broth-based soups, snacking on salted nuts or olives, and adding electrolyte drinks or salt tablets. If you have heart or kidney problems, talk to your doctor before increasing sodium, since it can worsen fluid retention in those conditions.
Physical Maneuvers That Work Immediately
If you feel a dizzy spell coming on, certain muscle-tensing techniques can raise your blood pressure quickly enough to prevent fainting. These work by squeezing blood out of your muscles and back toward your heart, increasing cardiac output. They’ve been tested in clinical settings and are effective at aborting episodes of near-fainting.
- Leg crossing with tensing: Cross your legs while standing and squeeze your leg, abdominal, and buttock muscles simultaneously. Hold for as long as needed.
- Handgrip: Squeeze a rubber ball, a water bottle, or even your own fist as hard as you can with your dominant hand.
- Arm tensing: Grip one hand with the other in front of your body and pull outward with both arms, contracting your biceps and forearms.
- Squatting: If you feel faint, squat down immediately. This is the most effective position for rapidly pushing blood back to your core, though it’s not always practical in public.
These techniques are especially useful if you tend to get dizzy in situations like standing in line, giving blood, or getting up too quickly.
Adjust How and What You Eat
Blood pressure commonly drops 30 to 60 minutes after a meal, particularly a large one. This happens because your body diverts blood to your digestive system, leaving less circulating elsewhere. The effect is worse with meals high in refined carbohydrates like white bread, white rice, potatoes, and sugary drinks, which pass quickly from the stomach to the small intestine.
To counter this, eat smaller meals more frequently rather than two or three large ones. Swap rapidly digested carbs for whole grains, beans, protein, and healthy fats, which slow digestion and produce a gentler blood pressure response. Drinking 12 to 18 ounces of water about 15 minutes before eating can also blunt the post-meal pressure drop. If your symptoms are significant after meals, sitting or lying down for an hour afterward helps.
Wear Compression Garments
Compression stockings prevent blood from pooling in your legs when you stand, which is a major contributor to orthostatic hypotension. They work by gently squeezing your leg veins and pushing blood back toward your heart. Johns Hopkins Medicine recommends starting with 20 to 30 mmHg compression. If that feels too tight or hard to put on, 15 to 20 mmHg is a reasonable alternative. If 20 to 30 mmHg isn’t enough, you can step up to 30 to 40 mmHg.
Waist-high stockings are more effective than knee-high ones because they also compress the veins in your thighs. Abdominal compression binders offer additional benefit for some people. Put them on before getting out of bed in the morning, since that’s when blood pooling is most likely to cause problems.
Change How You Move
Simple habit changes can reduce how often your blood pressure drops throughout the day. Get out of bed slowly: sit on the edge for a minute before standing. When getting up from a chair, pause and flex your calf muscles a few times before walking. Avoid standing still for long periods. If you have to, shift your weight from foot to foot or march in place to keep blood circulating.
Elevating the head of your bed by 4 to 6 inches (using blocks under the legs, not extra pillows) helps train your body to retain more fluid overnight, which makes morning blood pressure less likely to crash. Sleeping completely flat allows your kidneys to flush out more sodium and water during the night, leaving you more volume-depleted by morning.
Medications for Persistent Low Blood Pressure
When lifestyle changes aren’t enough, several prescription medications can help. The most commonly prescribed is midodrine, which works by tightening blood vessels to increase pressure. Another option is fludrocortisone, a low-dose steroid that helps your kidneys hold onto sodium, increasing your blood volume. It also makes your blood vessels more responsive to the signals that constrict them.
These medications are typically used for orthostatic hypotension that significantly affects daily life, particularly in people with nervous system disorders or age-related blood pressure regulation problems. They require monitoring because raising blood pressure too much, especially while lying down, creates its own risks.
When Low Blood Pressure Is an Emergency
Most low blood pressure is more annoying than dangerous. But certain symptoms alongside low readings signal a medical emergency. Seek immediate care if low blood pressure is accompanied by chest pain, difficulty breathing, a racing heart, fever, or a recent injury. If someone collapses and doesn’t recover quickly, call emergency services.
You should also see a doctor if your low blood pressure symptoms are new, came on suddenly, have changed in pattern, occur while you’re sitting or lying down (not just standing), or are becoming more frequent or severe. These patterns can point to underlying causes like heart problems, endocrine disorders, or internal bleeding that need their own treatment rather than just blood pressure management.