9 TRICKS To STOP Swollen Feet & Legs IMMEDIATELY!

This is Tom Radke, and today I'm talking about how to immediately reduce the swelling in your feet, your ankles, and your legs. We're starting now. This is the top 10 list of how to reduce the swelling in your feet and ankles, because swelling can be dangerous. It leads to poor oxygen delivery, fatigue, lack of athletic performance, poor nutrition delivery. The fact that your feet and ankles can get scaly and crusty, that's the actual protein that can deposit in the skin. So there's a lot of things that can contribute to poor blood flow down to your feet. You can have vascular disease. So vascular disease is the flow down to your feet, not enough skin down there. Venous disease is the blood getting back up. It creates like a traffic jam, so your feet swell. At the same time, you have the lymph vessels, which collect your larger molecules like your protein, for example. They can be plugged up, and that protein just stays in your feet, in your ankles. It can attract water. So sometimes you want to get to the root cause of this, but this is not the point of this video. These are the top 10 tricks to get that swelling and aching down. Number one, elevate the legs for better circulation. So a lot of the times when your feet are down and swelling, if you're standing all day, if you're walking, just getting your feet up within seconds. There's actually a test, a gravity dependent test, where in 45 seconds we see how fast the blood drains out of your feet, but that helps your blood flow along. It's a good recommendation if you're up, if you're standing for at least a minute or two, get your feet up. That swelling will come down. It will reduce pressure on your heart, reduce the swelling. It's great for conditions like edema and varicose veins. Number two, exercise for enhanced circulation. Regular exercise boosts circulation in legs and feet. If you wake up and you're bloated or you feel bloated, sometimes moving gets the gassiness out of your stomach, and it circulates that blood flow. The second best pump for your blood vessels after your heart is your muscles. Every time your muscles squeeze, valves don't let that blood flow go back, so it shoots that blood flow back up to your heart and cycles that swelling out of there. That's why walking is so healthy. Walking, jogging, and cycling are very effective, but just go for a walk. They actually used to kill people in the wild west days by tying them up to a tree, and due to lack of exercise and moving, the fluid would bunch up so much that it would put too much pressure on your lungs and heart and kill the person after a few days of not being able to move. Exercise also stimulates a process called angiogenesis, so you actually grow new blood vessels that create better blood flow overall. Statistically, exercising, strength training, and cardio is by far the healthiest thing you can do for your life. Number three, compression stockings. I love compression stockings, but there's a good way to use them and there's a bad way to use them. If you try and get insurance to cover compression stockings, the bottom line is insurance does not work well. They won't cover these. You want to buy a pre-made one. I have some great links below, and everything you purchase, it helps the channel out. It helps me keep making these great videos, so thank you. I appreciate you guys, but you want to start with something like a 10 to 20 millimeters of mercury. That can make a big difference, and this squeezes down on your leg and it prevents those valves from shooting the blood flow back, and it shoots it back up to your heart. So start light. Make them comfortable. Don't make them hard and uncomfortable. The pressure moves it back to your heart. It's very rapid. It helps with swelling, clotting, and varicose veins. Number four, massages for instant blood flow. Foot and leg massages stimulate blood flow. Now, I have a great wife, so she helps me out. I am so thankful for her, but there's easier ways to do this. There are leg pumps. There's foot massagers. These things do not have to be expensive anymore. I personally, when I sit at my computer desk, I put my leg pumps on and they feel great. Sometimes with achy sore muscles, doing this daily for like 10-15 minutes, it makes such a big difference for my calf muscles. I just feel great. Highly, highly recommend these, and the cost is pretty good. Same with a foot massager. I put my favorite foot massager down below. It makes such a big difference. This relieves muscle tension and dilates blood vessels. It promotes relaxation and alleviates stress. Check out a foot and calf massager. Number five, warm baths for circulation improvement. Warm baths are shown to expand blood vessels, enhancing circulation. This facilitates oxygen and nutrient delivery to cells. I personally love Epsom salts, and this has magnesium in it. Magnesium is so heart healthy. You can also use essential oils to enhance your relaxation. Check those out below as well. Ankle rotations to prevent blood pooling. Simply moving your feet up and down, rotating them around. If you're on a plane, if you're on a desk, even pushing your feet up against the ground, it stimulates your muscles to contract, and it shoots that blood flow back to your heart. Highly recommended, but small little exercises, up and down rotations, and even just pressing against the ground. I pretend I'm doing squats like 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 when I'm sitting on an airplane. Huge, huge difference. Cycles that blood. You can exercise without even moving. Those are called isometric exercises. Simple exercises reduce swelling and discomfort. The calf muscle is such a great pump in our body. Number six, stretching for immediate circulation boost. Just like strength training, stretching elongates and flexes the muscle. So bending your feet up, bending them down, trying to grab your toes, even when you're sitting in a small spot, that can make such a big difference. This helps prevent blood pooling in the legs and the feet. It's effective after prolonged sitting. Very, very effective. Even if you're sitting, you don't have to get up. Just push down, stretch up. When I work, I use a standing desk, and I have a stretch mat. So I'm always stretching my feet as I stand at the desk. Number seven, hydration. Hydration is a confusing topic because if you have kidney disease, for example, too much water builds up in your body and you smell more. But if your kidneys are healthy, proper hydration maintains blood viscosity for smooth blood flow. So if you're dehydrated, your blood flow is actually thicker and it has a hard time moving. It's more viscous like honey or jam. Aim for at least eight cups of water daily. This supports overall bodily functions and vitality. Number eight, avoid crossed leg sitting for better circulation. Now you can do this for a little bit. This works great. You can stretch your glutes, your thighs, your hamstrings. But sitting cross-legged for too long can compromise circulation. It puts pressure on certain veins, leading to potential issues like long-term varicose veins. Prioritize sitting with both feet flat on the ground and try and change positions. There's actually a great physical therapist that I know, and he has people change every 10, 15 minutes. Legs out to one side, legs out to the other side, cross-legged, legs straight. And every 15 to 30 minutes, you want to keep twitching. This can actually be good while you're watching TV. It stretches your muscles by changing those positions. Whereas when you're sitting on the couch, that blood will pool in your legs. Number nine, limit sodium intake for improved circulation. I just made a video about kidney issues, but people with kidney issues, you want to limit your salt to about 2.3 grams per day or 2300 milligrams per day. Now with cans, with all this packaged food, it's loaded up with salt, so it can sit on the shelves for hours and hours. Monitoring your salt intake can make such a big difference if you're older, if you have diabetes especially. This makes such a difference. It'll lower your blood pressure, so your blood pressure is not squeezing that fluid out. I go over the best foods, the best supplements for both blood pressure, for both kidney disease. If you have high blood pressure or kidney disease, check out all those videos. You won't be sorry. And the big, big secret that I promised you guys, you want to do it all at once. Most people that I see, they are sore. They're uneven. And what I mean by that is, if I took my ultrasound and I measured the bottom of their foot, their ankles, their muscles, the muscles are swollen, they're sore, they're bloated. Certain parts of our joints and muscles get sore and inflamed. Those inflammatory markers make our ankles, our feet, our legs swell. No matter what you do, it'll keep staying swollen. So if those things aren't working, what you have to do is get a biomechanical evaluation. If you're in the Michigan area, I would love to see you. But what happens is, starting with light activity, so proper shoes, proper insoles, you feel very supported. Your joint pain gets better immediately. And as a few days go by, a few weeks, your soreness comes down, your swelling comes down. That lets you walk more. And as you're walking more, your blood's flowing, your muscles are working, new blood vessels are growing. One week, two weeks, three weeks, you're starting to get healthy. You're stronger. You're more cardiovascularly fit. And at the beginning, you can use compression stockings to push that fluid up. That makes a big difference. And then as you get stronger and more flexible, you don't need all this stuff because your body's working naturally. You're working well. That's the big secret. And it works like 90 plus percent of the time for my patient. But at the same time, if you have serious kidney, liver, heart issues, blood pressure issues, I have videos on all of those. That's what you got to do. Check those out. You won't be sorry. And guys, I really appreciate you. I care about you. Thank you so much. If this video could be any better, let me know in the comments. It makes a big difference for the search algorithm.