What Are The Best Compression Socks For Sitting All Day

Occupations that require you to sit all day may not sound like hard work, but they can take their toll on your health.

Excessive sitting can cause blood to pool around your ankles and feet.

This swelling can be very painful and can even lead to blood clots forming in your legs.

Fortunately, high-quality compression socks are a perfect way to alleviate these side effects.

Lets talk about the best compression socks for sitting all day…

What Are The Best Compression Socks to Wear If You Sit All Day?

The best compression socks for people who sit all day are ones with graduated compression that have pressure ratings of 15-20 mmHg or 20-30 mmHg.

These graduated compression socks, also known as compression stockings, fit tightly at the ankles and gradually become looser as they move up the leg. They are specially designed to prevent venous disorders like thrombosis, phlebitis, and edema, also known as swelling.

Compression socks work. When worn, they provide pressure to the leg which reduces enlarged veins and increases blood flow. This increase in circulation stops blood from pooling in the ankles and feet caused by sitting for long periods at a time, and can even prevent blood clots from forming.

What Are Blood Clots And Why Are They Dangerous?

A blood clot is a clump of blood that has changed from a liquid to a gel-like or semisolid state.

Blood clots occur in people who can’t move around freely, such as those who have to sit at work for extended periods or those who are recovering from an injury or surgery.

Unfortunately, blood clots that form in legs, the groin, or arms may break loose. A loose blood clot can then move to other parts of your body – including your lungs. This creates a condition called a pulmonary embolism, which can be fatal.

How to Prevent Blood Clots

A simple way to prevent blood clots is to wear compression socks. Compressions socks force blood through narrower channels by compressing the veins, arteries, and muscles of your leg. These socks help because they have a compressive property that helps push superficial veins in your lower legs to aid venous return to your heart. We recommend 20-30 mmHg moderate compression.

Other Ways to Prevent Blood Clots Include:

• Getting adequate exercise (especially helpful for your lower leg health)

• Changing positions often (I’m partial to this option)

• Avoiding sitting or standing for longer than one hour at a time

• Reducing your salt intake (I found this also helps)

• Limiting the amount of time crossing your legs (especially when working from home)

• Raising the bottom of your bed slightly when you sleep

While compression socks can help prevent blood clots, they are not intended to replace healthy movement and regular activity. They are simply a method to aid circulation if you have to remain seated for prolonged periods.

What Are The Benefits Of Compression Stockings For People Who Sit All Day?

Compression stockings help prevent swelling, blood pooling, venous disorders, heaviness, tingling, and numbness the can come from sitting for long periods of time.

Other Benefits Include:

• Prevents Varicose Veins
• Supports Muscles and Joints
• Increases Exercise Recovery
• Prevents Ulcers
• Reduces Pain

Who Can Benefit From Wearing Compression Socks

Compression socks were first designed to help prevent blood clots, reduce leg swelling, and improve circulation in patients whose mobility were reduced due to surgery or other medical conditions.

These benefits were reported by editors at news outlets like Cnet, Verywell Health, and Wirecutter (plus in their newsletter). Then compression socks got popular with women on TikTok who tested the compression and gave an opinion about their new sport compression socks.

Today, compression socks are worn by diverse people across all vocations who are involved in all kinds of activities, even athletes and active people.

Who Should Wear Compression Socks:

• People who sit for hours at a time
• People who stand for hours at a time
• People who are athletic
• People who travel frequently and for long-distances (some consider compression socks as important as a face mask while traveling)
• People who are recovering from an injury or surgery
• People who are pregnant
• People who are diabetic

What Types of Jobs Require People to Sit for Prolonged Periods of Time?

Examples of jobs that require people to sit for prolonged periods of time:

• Most office jobs: clerk, data-entry worker, writer, designer, receptionist, programmer
• Call center personnel
• Electronic assembly-line employees
• Cashiers and tellers
• Toll booth operators
• Pilots and air traffic controllers
• Drivers: train, bus, truck, couriers
• Crane and forklift operators

If your job falls into any of the above categories (or perhaps one that we have overlooked) and you are required to sit for hours at a time, wearing compression socks can help relieve some of the symptoms of swelling, fatigue, and aches that come with that territory.

In short – if you sit often or for prolonged periods of time, you should wear compression socks.

Unlike buying expensive fitness gear and doing exhausting workouts, compression socks are not expensive. These are a low price affordable budget gear item with enough durability to last a long time. That’s why most professionals often recommends compression socks.

Why is Sitting All Day So Bad for Your Health?

A job that requires a person to spend most of the day seated does not entirely rule out the risk of injury. Sitting for too long can damage bones, muscles, tendons, and ligaments.

It also slows your circulatory system.

The decrease in blood flow causes an increase in the buildup of fatty acids in your blood vessels. Gravity wins every time – working against the blood that is trying to make its way back up your legs to your heart.

The result is that your feet and lower legs swell and feel heavy. Fortunately, wearing compression socks will help!

Other physical ailments that are common among people with desk jobs (or any job that requires one to be seated for hours at a time) are back, neck, and shoulder muscle tenderness or pain; stiffness and numbness in the buttocks and legs; and joint pain in hips, knees, and ankles. Again, wearing compression socks will help!  

One would think that keeping still is safe, when in fact extended periods of immobility result in a higher likelihood of muscles being strained or pulled.

Even if your job has you sitting for hours at a time, you should take breaks by standing up and walking around. Exercise and nutrition improvements can also help.

Being seated for continuous and prolonged periods is also known to cause heart disease, reduced mental health, and health issues like diabetes. Once again, wearing compression socks will help!

Why Do You Feel Physically Tired After Sitting All Day?

Ever feel tired at the end of a day at work when all you were doing was sitting in a stationary position? Well, there’s a reason for that.

Sitting requires your muscles to hold your trunk, neck, and shoulders in one position. At the same time, blood vessels are squeezed, reducing blood supply to the muscles that are moving. Heart activity slows because of the reduced blood flow. Then at the end of it, an inadequate blood supply exacerbates fatigue.

What Can You Do If You Have to Sit For Most of the Day?

If you have to be seated for long hours, you should:

• Wear compression socks
• Ensure you have the right chair for your body type
• Take a break
• Stretch
• Perform a few exercises when not at work

Firstly, let’s look at your chair. 

Like compression stockings, your chair has to be a good fit for you in order to be the most comfortable.

If you’re six feet tall, have long legs, and weak abdominal muscles, your chair requirements vary greatly from a five-and-a-half foot person who has core strength.

To overcome the lack of chair choices, the adjustable office chair offers a viable solution. Being able to adjust the height of the seat and the height and angle of the backrest allows room for an individual needs to be met.

Now let’s look at those activities and exercise that can keep you healthy during a long workday of sitting.

Activities:

1. Set a timer to remind yourself to stand up, stretch, and/or walk around at least once an hour.
2. Sit upright. A straight spine helps with they body’s blood circulation. Focus on strengthening your core if you struggle to maintain an upright posture.
3. Be sure to move during the day – don’t leave everything for the gym. Although your job may require hours of chair-time, we all have to take breaks to eat, drink, or go to the bathroom. Get your blood pumping during these breaks by doing a few lunges or stair-jumps. Take the stairs and avoid elevators or escalators.  
4. Sit on a stability ball instead of a chair occasionally.
5. If at all possible, change your desk to a standing desk.
6. Get creative – stand during a meeting, or better yet, take a walk while you talk business. 

Exercises:

The following extract is from self.com.
“Sitting all day can also impact us physically. Sitting for long periods of time, especially with poor posture, makes your hip flexors tight, which causes the glutes (butt muscles) to lengthen to compensate.

Over time, this compromises the ability of the gluteal muscles to activate properly, leading to a condition called gluteal amnesia, AKA dead butt syndrome. When your glutes can’t do their job, other muscles in your body have to work harder, which ultimately can overwork them, leading to poor body alignment and aches.

Tight hip flexors also make it harder for your pelvis to rotate properly—inhibited mobility in this area can cause compression and pain in the lower back, physical therapist Dan Giordano, D.P.T., C.S.C.S., and co-founder of Bespoke Treatments Physical Therapy in New York City, tells SELF.”

Self.com put together a workout to help undo some of the damage caused by sitting all day. These exercises are designed to:

• work the posterior muscles of the body
• develop pelvic and spinal alignment
• strengthen your core, and
• engage your legs.

Exercise 1

Dead Bug — 20 reps, alternating
Develops Core Strength

1. Lie on your back with your arms at shoulder level raised toward the ceiling. Bring your legs up into tabletop position (knees bent 90 degrees and stacked over your hips).
2. Slowly extend your right leg out straight while simultaneously dropping your left arm overhead. Keep both a few inches from the ground.
3. Bring your arm and leg back to the starting position.
4. Repeat on the other side, extending your left leg and your right arm. That’s one rep. Continue alternating for 20 reps total.

Exercise 2

Plank — 30 seconds
Works Your Whole Body and Strengthens Your Core

1. Get on all fours with your toes on the ground shoulder-width apart. Place your forearms flat on the floor in front of you with your elbows directly below your shoulders.
2. Keep your core tight, so your body is in a straight line from head to toe.
3. Squeeze your thighs and butt.
4. Keep your neck and spine in a comfortable, neutral position.
5. Hold for 30 seconds.

Exercise 3

Single-Leg Bridges — 12 reps each leg
Works the Largest Glute Muscles Plus Hamstrings and Core

1. Lie flat on your back. Bend your knees and place your feet flat on the floor about a foot or so away from your butt. Rest your arms at your sides on the floor.
2. Lift your right leg in the air toward the ceiling, keeping your foot flexed.
3. Push through your left foot to lift your glutes, hips, and back off the ground.
4. Slowly lower back down, keeping your right leg in the air.
5. Repeat for 12 reps, and then switch legs.

Repeat the entire circuit three times.

What Are The Common Reasons To Wear Compression Socks

Listed below are some of the common reasons why you should wear compression socks:

• Improve Athletic Performance

Because they offer muscle and vascular support, promote circulation, and aid in muscle recovery, compression socks are a valuable piece for most athletes’ wardrobes.

Besides being worn during and after athletic events, compression stockings can be worn whilst commuting to events that are far away, further reducing the risk of muscle injury or vein disorders.

Compression socks also help prevent injuries due to overuse, underuse, and inflammation.

• Enhance Post-Exercise Recovery

As we touched on above – the pressure from compression socks aids blood circulation, which helps tired, sore muscles to recover faster.

For injuries that require rest, ice, compression, and elevation (RICE), compression socks offer a solution. Such injuries include plantar fasciitis, shin splints, calf strain or sprain, and ankle sprain or strain.

• Reduce the Risk of Edema During Pregnancy

During pregnancy, the expanding uterus places pressure on the inferior vena cava (the vein responsible for returning blood to the heart), and this can affect the veins in the legs and cause swelling.

Swelling is not only uncomfortable, but it can lead to risky medical conditions like blood clots and pulmonary embolism. By enhancing circulation and improving venous health, compression socks are used during both rest and activity.

• Help Reduce Swelling in Those with Diabetes

One of the negative side effects of diabetes is reduced circulation, especially to the feet. Wearing compression stockings will improve blood flow and therefore reduce the effects of this condition.

• Helps Prevent Blood Pooling in Those Who are Bedridden

Originally designed for this very reason, compression socks aid with circulation in those who are bedridden due to illness, post-operative care, or injury.  

• Prevents Thrombosis During Long Flights

There isn’t a space on earth more cramped than the seat of an airplane on a long-distance flight. When you’re flying a mile high, you can’t just step out for a walk. Wearing compression socks while flying is therefore highly recommended for travelers, flight attendants, and cabin crew alike.  

• Prevents Varicose and Spider Veins

Varicose veins are large, raised veins that can be painful, unattractive, and medically unsafe. They’re unsightly and can lead to some leg pain. They occur when blood flow is poor, hindering venous return.

When blood is restricted from returning to the heart for recirculation, it pools in the legs, enlarging the veins.

While being active helps prevent varicose veins, they can occur in healthy, athletic people, especially if they have prolonged periods of inactivity due to sitting behind a desk at work all day.

Compression socks help with the prevention of spider veins and varicose veins.

• Increases Muscular Stability

Those who have jobs or participate in activities that require them to stand for prolonged periods also need compression socks to help beat the effects of poor circulation caused by being in one position for too long. For example, flight attendants, factory workers, waitresses, nurses, security officials, etc., all benefit from wearing compression socks.

Compression stockings can also be used in the management and treatment of diseases and complications such as Chronic Venous Insufficiency, Venous Thromboembolism, and Lymphedema.

Are There Harmful Side Effects To Wearing Compression Socks?

Unlike other medical devices, wearing compression socks does not have harmful side effects.

The tightness of compression stockings can cause mild discomfort at first, but as edema and swelling ease, so will the tightness.  

Some people struggle with putting their compression stockings on. This is because of the tight fitting, which is important for achieving the therapeutic benefit of the socks.

Tips for Donning Your Compression Stockings

Here are a few tips to help you put on your socks:

First: Make sure you have the correct size.

Tip 1
Gently pull the un-bunched sock over your foot until it is over the foot and heel. This can also be done while the stocking is folded inside out or rolled down to your ankle. Slowly pull or unroll the rest of the sock up your leg to the correct height, smoothing it out as you go.

Tip 2
Make sure your skin is dry. If you have applied lotion, wait for it to be completely absorbed, as moisture makes it more difficult to don your compression stockings.

Tip 3
Apply talcum powder to your feet and legs before you put your compression socks on. This will not only help the socks to go on more easily but will also help absorb any perspiration once you are wearing them.

Tip 4
When you are going to put on your compression socks, sit on a chair for stability.

Tip 5
When the compression sock is on, make sure that there is no bunching or wrinkling and that the seams are straight up your leg. Don’t fold the top of the socks down like you would sports or dress socks.

Tip 6
A device called a stocking donner can help you don a compression stocking a little easier if you struggle to grasp and pull. This is especially helpful for people who have arthritis.

Considering that compression socks are capable of preventing, treating and managing a wide variety of health concerns and medical conditions, the lack of contraindications linked to wearing compression socks proves that they are not only very effective but also completely safe.

It is, however, important to ensure your compression socks fit properly to achieve their full benefit. If you are unsure, seek the advice of a medical practitioner who will measure you, ascertain your needs, and determine which compression socks will suit you best.

There are so many reasons to wear compression stockings for your general health and well-being, from preventing swelling, varicose and spider veins to aiding in athletic or surgery recovery.

Whatever your reason for wearing compression socks, know that compression socks work.

If you buy through our links, you can get a pair of ComproGear Compression Socks that comes with a lifetime guarantee.

This page last updated March 27, 2023