If your blood pressure is running low, you can raise it through a combination of quick physical techniques, dietary changes, and daily habits. Low blood pressure is generally defined as a reading below 90/60 mmHg, and while it’s not always dangerous, it can cause dizziness, lightheadedness, and fainting that interfere with everyday life.
Quick Physical Techniques That Work Immediately
When you feel your blood pressure dropping, certain body movements can push it back up within seconds. These are called counter-pressure maneuvers, and they work by squeezing your muscles against your blood vessels, forcing blood back toward your heart and brain. A large review of studies found these techniques raise systolic blood pressure by about 15 mmHg on average.
The most effective options include:
- Leg crossing with muscle tensing: Cross your legs at the ankles while standing and squeeze your thigh and abdominal muscles.
- Hand gripping: Squeeze a ball or make a tight fist and hold it for 30 seconds or more.
- Squatting: Drop into a squat, which compresses the large blood vessels in your legs and rapidly pushes blood upward.
- Calf raises or tiptoeing: Rise onto your toes repeatedly. This dynamic pumping action raises systolic pressure through muscle contraction in the lower legs.
- Whole-body tensing: Tighten every muscle you can, from your legs through your core and arms, for 10 to 30 seconds.
These maneuvers are especially useful if you tend to feel faint when standing up quickly. Get in the habit of crossing your legs and tensing before you rise from a chair, and pause at the edge of the bed for a moment before standing in the morning.
Increase Your Salt Intake
For most health conditions, doctors tell you to cut back on salt. Low blood pressure is the opposite. Sodium pulls water into your bloodstream, increasing blood volume, which directly raises pressure. For people with orthostatic disorders (conditions that cause blood pressure to drop when standing), medical guidelines typically recommend 2,400 to 4,000 mg of sodium per day. Some guidelines go as high as 4,800 mg for certain conditions like postural tachycardia syndrome (POTS).
For context, the average American already eats about 3,400 mg of sodium daily. So if you’re dealing with chronically low blood pressure, you may need to deliberately add salt beyond typical levels. Practical ways to do this include salting your food more liberally, eating salty snacks like olives or pickles, or adding electrolyte packets to your water. Some people take sodium tablets, which provide a measured dose.
Drink More Water
Dehydration is one of the most common and easily fixable causes of low blood pressure. Water increases total blood volume, which raises pressure. Alcohol does the opposite, lowering blood pressure even in moderate amounts by promoting dehydration and relaxing blood vessel walls.
There’s no single daily water target proven to correct hypotension, but the goal is to stay consistently hydrated throughout the day rather than drinking large amounts at once. Keeping a water bottle with you and sipping regularly is more effective than trying to catch up later. If plain water isn’t doing enough, adding electrolytes (sodium, potassium, magnesium) helps your body retain more of the fluid you drink.
Adjust How You Eat
Blood pressure naturally dips after meals because your body redirects blood flow to your digestive system. For people who already run low, this post-meal drop can cause dizziness or even fainting. Two changes help prevent this.
First, eat smaller meals more frequently. Six smaller meals spread throughout the day cause less blood flow diversion than three large ones. Second, reduce carbohydrates at each meal. High-carb meals cause the most pronounced post-meal blood pressure drops because they trigger greater digestive blood flow. Replacing some carbohydrates with protein and fat at each meal can smooth out the dip considerably.
Wear Compression Garments
Compression stockings or leggings prevent blood from pooling in your legs, which is a major cause of low blood pressure when standing. They work by gently squeezing the veins in your lower body, helping push blood back toward your heart.
Johns Hopkins Medicine recommends starting with 20 to 30 mmHg compression, which provides firm pressure without being too difficult to put on. If that feels too tight, 15 to 20 mmHg is a lighter alternative. If it’s not enough, you can move up to 30 to 40 mmHg. Waist-high compression garments tend to be more effective than knee-high stockings because they also compress the veins in your thighs and abdomen. Put them on before getting out of bed in the morning, when blood pooling hasn’t started yet.
Be Careful With Exercise
Exercise has a complicated relationship with blood pressure. During a workout, your pressure rises. But over time, regular exercise training actually lowers resting blood pressure. A large meta-analysis in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that isometric exercises (like wall sits and handgrip exercises) reduced resting systolic blood pressure by about 8 mmHg on average over weeks of training. Wall squats were the most potent, lowering systolic pressure by roughly 10 mmHg.
This means that while muscle tensing helps in the moment, a regular exercise program could lower your baseline pressure further if it’s already low. If you exercise specifically to manage hypotension, focus on the acute benefit (doing counter-pressure maneuvers when you feel symptomatic) rather than structured training programs designed for cardiovascular fitness. Avoid prolonged standing during workouts, stay hydrated, and stop if you feel lightheaded.
Change How You Get Out of Bed
Many people with low blood pressure feel worst first thing in the morning. After lying flat all night, standing up suddenly forces your cardiovascular system to rapidly adjust, and sometimes it can’t keep up. A few habit changes reduce the shock:
- Sit on the edge of the bed for 30 to 60 seconds before standing.
- Pump your ankles up and down while sitting to activate the calf muscles and start moving blood upward.
- Drink a glass of water before getting up, ideally kept on your nightstand.
- Tense your leg and abdominal muscles as you stand.
Some sources suggest elevating the head of your bed by about six inches to reduce morning blood pressure drops, but a randomized controlled trial in older adults with orthostatic hypotension found no meaningful benefit after six weeks compared to other non-drug measures. The positional changes you make when transitioning from lying to standing matter more than your sleeping angle.
Signs Your Blood Pressure Is Too Low
Mild low blood pressure often causes no symptoms at all, and some people naturally run below 90/60 mmHg without any problems. The symptoms that signal your blood pressure has dropped enough to matter include dizziness or lightheadedness (especially when standing), blurry vision, nausea, fatigue, and difficulty concentrating. Fainting is the clearest sign that your brain isn’t getting enough blood flow. Cold, clammy, or pale skin, rapid shallow breathing, and confusion can indicate a more serious drop that needs immediate medical attention.