Yoga guide
Yoga can help your circulation a little, mainly by keeping your leg muscles working and easing blood pressure, but it doesn't "flush" your blood, and headstands and twists aren't needed. Your calf muscles are the pump that pushes blood back up from your legs, so the poses that matter are the ones that make your calves and thighs work. In small trials, yoga improved how well artery linings work and lowered blood pressure by a few points; no study has shown it improves blood flow to the hands, feet or legs.
This guide explains what "poor circulation" usually means (narrowed arteries, leaky veins, Raynaud's or a clot), what the trials show, why sitting still matters, the inversion and twist myths, and the signs that need a GP or 999. It ends with a free 20-minute class with no head-down poses and a 3D demo of every move.
Arteries carry blood from your heart, tiny capillaries let oxygen and waste pass in and out, and veins carry blood back. The NHS has no page called "poor circulation": the phrase usually means narrowed leg arteries, leaky leg veins, small blood vessels that spasm in the cold (Raynaud's) or a clot, and each needs its own advice.
Standing still, the pressure in a vein on top of your foot is 80 to 90 mmHg; walking or rising onto your toes brings it down to 20 to 30. Moving your feet and ankles raised the blood flow in leg veins, most when combined with slow, deep breathing. So the poses that matter for circulation are the ones that make your calves and legs work.
In small trials, yoga improved how well the lining of an artery works and lowered blood pressure by about 5/4 mmHg. No study has measured whether it improves blood flow to the hands, feet or legs.
Hanging upside down raised blood pressure and lowered the heart's output in healthy men, and headstand lowered blood flow to the brain. Legs up the wall shrank calves by about 3 mm in 15 minutes, less than lying flat. No study has tested twists on circulation.
For narrowed leg arteries (peripheral arterial disease, PAD), the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommends a supervised walking programme, which adds about 82 metres of pain-free walking and 120 metres in total. Stopping smoking matters most of all. Yoga can be an extra, not a replacement.
A foot or leg that suddenly turns cold, pale, numb, weak or very painful is a 999 call. Leg pain on walking that eases when you rest needs a GP, and throbbing pain and swelling in one leg needs help the same day. The full list is in the warning signs below.
MedlinePlus, the US National Library of Medicine's health site, describes arteries as carrying "oxygen-rich blood from your heart to your tissues and organs", veins as carrying "the blood and waste products back to your heart", and capillaries as "tiny blood vessels" whose walls "are thin and leaky, to allow for an exchange of materials between your tissues and blood". Lack of exercise, sitting or standing still for long periods and smoking are among the risk factors it lists for problems with blood vessels.
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Working muscles get more blood because they need more oxygen. No pose "sends" blood anywhere. The trip back from your legs relies on one-way valves in the veins and the squeeze of your calf and foot muscles.
The phrase covers several different problems, each with its own guide on this site:
Sitting for an hour or more lowered how well the arteries in the legs (not the arms) worked, and the drop grew over 2 to 3 hours. After 2 hours of sitting, middle-aged adults had fuller, stiffer calves and more leg discomfort. Breaking up the sitting helped.
Standing poses make your thigh and calf muscles work, slow breathing and relaxation lower blood pressure a little, and yoga counts as muscle-strengthening activity rather than the brisk aerobic activity most circulation advice is about (our yoga for heart health guide). Head-down poses raise the pressure in your eyes and going upside down raises blood pressure, so this guide leaves them out.
The European Society for Vascular Surgery's guideline explains that when you stand still, the pressure in the veins of your foot is high (80 to 90 mmHg), but when the calf muscle pump works, "as during tip toe exercise or walking", it falls to 20 to 30 mmHg. When the valves leak or the pump is weak, the pressure stays high, which drives swelling and skin changes.
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In 20 people, actively moving the feet and ankles raised blood flow in the leg veins by 38% on average and 58% at its peak, more than when someone else moved them. In 20 healthy young men, the peak speed of blood in the main thigh vein was 10.1 cm a second at rest, 15.5 with deep breathing, 20.7 with ankle exercise and 26.5 with both.
In people with vein disease, exercise programmes improved how well the calf pump empties the veins, but not the leaky valves themselves. A Cochrane review of 5 small trials (146 people) rated the evidence on symptoms very low certainty.
Each breath nudges blood up from your legs in waves, but over time the total flow didn't change with breathing pattern, and ankle movement moved more blood than deep breathing. Breathe slowly while you move your ankles.
From our calf pump routine's dose (10 pumps, then 5 circles each way), with the slow breathing that, in a small study, moved the most blood when combined with ankle exercise. When you sit for a long time, do this every 30 to 60 minutes (our calf pump routine).
See the movement on the 3D figure: Ankle circles
A 2024 review found 18 studies with 1,043 people; 12 found better artery lining function with yoga and 6 didn't. In 6 controlled studies (395 people), yoga raised flow-mediated dilation (FMD, a test of how well an artery widens) by 1.23 percentage points. For scale, aerobic and strength training raised it by about 2.8 and 2.5 points in other trials, a comparison across different studies.
In 7 small studies, 4 found yoga lowered arterial stiffness and 3 didn't, and most were of poor quality. In wider comparisons of exercise types, mind-body exercise did well in one analysis but with a very wide range of uncertainty, and in adults over 60, strength training, aerobic training and walking ranked highest.
Across 49 trials with 3,517 adults, yoga lowered blood pressure by about 5/4 mmHg. In people with raised blood pressure it lowered it by about 8/5 mmHg against no treatment, on very low quality evidence, and not clearly more than other active treatments. Our yoga for high blood pressure guide has more.
In a few small studies, 4 to 12 weeks of regular stretching lowered arterial stiffness, though a single session didn't. In one trial of 39 adults, 12 weeks of leg stretching improved artery function, and some of the gain was lost within 6 weeks of stopping.
We found no study measuring blood flow to the hands, feet or legs over a yoga programme. In 17 young desk workers, 10 minutes of standing yoga each hour during 4 hours of sitting gave mostly no clear differences in artery measures, although the authors concluded it helped.
In 100 male factory workers with leg vein disease, 12 weeks of yoga improved symptom scores against lifestyle advice, but not ankle or calf swelling. In 46 people with varicose veins, a month of yoga combined with naturopathy eased symptoms, and so did passive exercise and stretching in the comparison group, with no clear difference shown between them. Both trials were small, and neither shows yoga changes the veins.
We found no trial of yoga in PAD and no trial of yoga or exercise as a treatment for Raynaud's.
In 22 trials, breaking up long sitting kept leg artery function from dropping. A 2026 review of 24 studies found that short breaks of 2 to 3 minutes of leg movement or simple strength moves every 20 to 30 minutes helped most consistently.
Every 20 to 30 minutes of sitting, 2 to 3 minutes of ankle pumps, calf raises, marching or a short walk. At the very least, the NHS says get up and move around every hour or so. Our 3-minute desk movement break is built for this.
NICE says to "offer a supervised exercise programme to all people with intermittent claudication" (leg pain on walking that eases with rest), with about 2 hours of supervised exercise a week for 3 months. In 32 trials, exercise programmes added about 82 metres of pain-free walking and 120 metres in total. They didn't unblock the artery: the gains come from the leg muscles and the smaller blood vessels around the narrowing.
The NHS: walk as far and as long as you can until the pain becomes intolerable, rest until it goes, then walk again, until you've walked for at least 30 minutes in total, several times a week, and keep exercising for life. Our PAD guide and its walk-rest-walk workout have the full programme.
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The Circulation Foundation, the UK vascular surgeons' charity, calls stopping smoking the most important treatment: after 5 years, people with PAD who stop are twice as likely to be alive, and less likely to need an amputation.
No trial has tested yoga in PAD. Cycling, leg strength training and arm cranking did about as well as walking in trials, on low-certainty evidence. Yoga on other days can add leg strength, balance and a little help with blood pressure (our suggestion), but it doesn't replace the walking.
Exercise regularly, such as walking or running, to improve blood flow; put your legs up when you can; don't stand or sit for long periods; and don't smoke. For swollen ankles, raise your legs on a chair or pillows and take gentle exercise such as walking.
The European vascular surgeons say exercise should be considered to ease vein symptoms, and that strength and ankle movement help the calf pump, though larger studies are needed. Calf raises, ankle pumps and walking work the pump; our varicose veins guide has the calf pump routine.
The NHS says compression stockings aren't suitable if you have problems with blood flow in your arteries, and that a specialist can check for this. Ask before buying strong ones.
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Keep warm, avoid sudden changes in temperature, "exercise regularly - this helps improve circulation", "try breathing exercises or yoga to help you relax", don't smoke and don't have too much caffeine.
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No trial has tested yoga or exercise as a treatment for Raynaud's. In 313 people, learning to warm the hands through relaxation did no better than its comparison, while a medicine (nifedipine) cut attacks by 66%. A GP can help if Raynaud's is bad or getting worse.
Scleroderma & Raynaud's UK, the charity, says the relaxation at the end of a class can cool you down, so take layers. Afterwards, warm cold hands and feet slowly: the NHS advises against putting them on a radiator or under hot water.
In 20 healthy men, an upside-down hang raised heart rate, blood pressure and resistance in the blood vessels, and lowered how much blood the heart pumped. In headstand, blood flow in the main artery to the brain fell, then recovered when people came down, and head-down tilting didn't change blood flow to the brain. We found no study showing inversions improve blood flow to the limbs.
In 9 young women, 15 minutes with the legs raised shrank the calves by 5.4 mm with the calves on a ball, 4.6 mm lying flat and 3.1 mm with the legs up a wall. After 2 hours of sitting, 3 minutes of leg raising eased calf stiffness. Intensive care research shows that raising the legs shifts about 300 mL of blood towards the heart for about a minute; applying that to the pose is our inference. A Cleveland Clinic doctor says to "beware any sweeping claims that it's some sort of cure-all". It's a restful pose, not a treatment, as our wall yoga guide says.
With glaucoma, skip it or ask your eye team first: eye pressure rises a little in the pose. With high blood pressure that isn't under control, keep your hips on the floor. With heart failure, or kidney or liver disease that causes fluid build-up, ask your doctor first. In later pregnancy, prop your upper body up or skip it.
We found no study of yoga twists and blood flow. Blood flow follows what your tissues need, especially working muscles. Gentle twists are fine for moving your spine.
Sitting: ankle pumps (10, then 5 circles each way), seated calf raises (15) and a seated march (1 minute), from our calf pump routine. Standing: slow calf raises (2 sets of 10 to 15, holding a worktop) and toe raises (10 to 15), also from that routine, then march on the spot for a minute (our editorial starting point).
Mountain pose: 5 to 10 slow breaths (the move's page). Chair pose: 3 holds of 20 to 30 seconds; warrior II: 5 breaths each side, twice; high lunge, back heel lifted: 5 breaths each side (our yoga for legs class). Tree pose: 30 seconds each side, fingertips on a wall (our walk and yoga workout).
3D demoMountain pose (Tadasana)Beginner · No equipment
3D demoChair pose (Utkatasana)Beginner · No equipment
3D demoWarrior II (Virabhadrasana II)Intermediate · No equipment
3D demoHigh lunge (crescent lunge, Ashta Chandrasana)Intermediate · No equipment
3D demoTree pose (Vrksasana)Beginner · No equipmentTo keep cold hands moving, not as a treatment. Tendon glides: 4 to 6 of each position, holding each for 5 seconds (the move's page); wrist circles: about 10 slow circles each way (our editorial starting point, as in our Raynaud's guide).
Slow breathing: at least 5 minutes, regularly (the move's page, from the NHS). Wall calf stretch: 30 seconds each leg (our calf pump routine). Legs up the wall: 2 to 5 minutes (our wall yoga guide's editorial starting point), or rest your calves on a chair seat, with the cautions above. Walking: with PAD, walk-rest-walk for at least 30 minutes in total, several times a week (the NHS); otherwise build towards 150 minutes of brisk walking a week.
They aren't needed for circulation. They raise blood pressure and eye pressure and load the neck, and US health advice tells beginners to avoid headstands and shoulder stands. Leave them out with glaucoma, high blood pressure that isn't controlled, osteoporosis, neck problems or pregnancy.
With glaucoma or high blood pressure that isn't controlled, keep downward dog and standing forward folds brief, as our sun salutation cues say. Our circulation class has no head-down poses.
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With numb feet, diabetes or PAD, come out of kneeling or cross-legged poses at once if your feet go numb or tingle, as our yoga for feet guide says.
Kapalabhati, bellows breath and breath holds raised blood pressure while people did them. Keep to slow breathing.
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We found no evidence that heat helps circulation more. With vein problems, the European vascular surgeons' lifestyle advice includes avoiding heat; with Raynaud's, a warm room is good but sudden changes in temperature aren't.
Start with our 20-minute circulation class 2 or 3 times a week, and walk on most other days (our editorial starting point). The calf pump routine is the shorter, non-yoga version; the walk and yoga workout adds a brisk walk; the desk break is for long days sitting; with leg pain on walking, the claudication walking workout comes first.
Twenty minutes of yoga for blood flow in your legs and feet: ankle pumps and calf raises, standing poses that make your legs work, and a rest with your legs up.
20 minBeginner14 movesA bench or box, A wallA 15-minute calf pump routine for varicose veins and heavy, swollen legs: ankle pumps, calf raises, a brisk walk, calf stretches and legs up to finish.
15 minBeginner10 movesA bench or box, A wallA 45-minute session for weight loss and health: a 20-minute brisk walk, which does more for the scales, then a standing yoga flow for strength and balance.
45 minBeginner12 movesCardio machineA 25-minute yoga routine for your legs: standing holds for the thighs, one-leg poses for the glutes, bridges, calf and shin raises, then hip and hamstring stretches.
25 minBeginner17 movesA step, A wallA 3-minute standing break to repeat every 30 to 60 minutes at your desk: sit-to-stands, calf raises, marching, an upper-back turn and chin tucks.
3 minBeginner5 movesA bench or box, A wallThe walk-rest-walk session for leg pain from narrowed arteries: walk until the pain is close to the most you can bear, rest until it goes, repeat to 30 minutes.
45 minBeginner8 movesA wall, Cardio machineForty minutes of short-hold poses, slow breathing and a 10-minute relaxation, with no head-down poses or breath holds.
40 minBeginner14 movesA step, Firm cushionA gentle 35-minute yoga class for heart conditions: a 15-minute warm-up that builds slowly, short standing poses, a seated cool-down, breathing with no holds and rest.
35 minBeginner18 movesA bench or box, A wallThe walking plan builds to 150 minutes a week over 8 weeks.
This is general information, not a diagnosis. A&E means accident and emergency. In the US, call 911 where this page says 999, and use your doctor's urgent line or urgent care for NHS 111.
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If calf pain on walking or standing comes on during a class, rest until it goes, as in walk-rest-walk. Come out of kneeling poses at once if your feet go numb or tingle. Come up slowly from lying and from legs up the wall: roll to your side and sit for a moment. Stop for chest pain, unusual breathlessness or dizziness.
Hanging upside down raised blood pressure and lowered the heart's output in healthy men, and we found no study showing inversions improve blood flow to the limbs. There's no "stagnant" blood to flush: blood flow follows what your tissues need. Our yoga for heart health guide grades this myth the same way.
In headstand, blood flow in the main artery to the brain fell, and head-down tilting didn't change blood flow to the brain. Our yoga for memory guide says the same.
We found no study of it, and our yoga benefits guide grades "twists wring out or massage your organs" the same way.
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It eased calf swelling by about 3 mm in 15 minutes, less than lying flat with the legs raised. It's a restful pose, not a treatment, as our wall yoga guide says.
No yoga trial exists in PAD, and even walking, the proven treatment, doesn't unblock the artery: the gains come from the muscles and the smaller vessels around the narrowing. Walking, stopping smoking and medicines are the treatment.
In two small trials, yoga eased symptoms but didn't change leg swelling or the veins, and exercise improves the calf pump but not the leaky valves. Treatment is what closes the veins.
Breathing nudges blood up from your legs with each breath, but ankle movement moved more blood, and the total flow over time didn't change with breathing pattern.
Cold, colour-changing fingers and toes are often Raynaud's. The NHS suggests warmth, regular exercise, not smoking, and breathing or yoga to relax, but no trial shows yoga treats it. Raynaud's on one side only, new after 30, or with joint pain or rashes needs a GP.
The NHS says many people mistakenly think so. See a GP for recurring leg pain when you exercise.
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A little, in some ways. In small trials, yoga improved how well artery linings work and lowered blood pressure by about 5/4 mmHg. No study has shown it improves blood flow to the hands, feet or legs, and walking and strength training have stronger evidence.
The ones that make your calves and legs work: calf raises, chair pose, warriors, high lunge with the back heel lifted, and tree pose. Your calf muscles push blood back up from your legs, and ankle pumps with slow breathing moved the most blood in a small study.
It's a restful way to ease heavy legs a little: calves shrank by about 3 mm in 15 minutes, less than lying flat with the legs raised. Two to 5 minutes is plenty. Skip it with glaucoma, keep your hips down with high blood pressure that isn't controlled, and ask your doctor first with heart failure or kidney or liver disease that causes fluid build-up.
No. Hanging upside down raised blood pressure and lowered the heart's output in healthy men, and headstand lowered blood flow to the brain. Head-down poses also raise eye pressure, and beginners are advised to avoid headstands and shoulder stands.
Yoga can help you relax and keep moving, which the NHS suggests for Raynaud's, but no trial shows it treats cold hands or feet. Keep your whole body warm and a layer on for the rest at the end of a class. See a GP if the colour changes affect one side only, start after 30, or come with joint pain or rashes.
No trial has tested it. Walking is the treatment: NICE recommends a supervised programme, which adds about 82 metres of pain-free walking and 120 metres in total. Yoga can be an extra for strength, balance and blood pressure on other days.
It may ease aching a little. In two small trials, yoga improved symptoms but didn't change ankle or calf swelling or the veins. Calf raises, walking and resting with your legs up are the NHS's advice, and treatment is what closes the veins.
A little: about 5/4 mmHg across 49 trials, and more in people with high blood pressure who practised breathing and relaxation 3 times a week. Against other active treatments, the difference wasn't clear.
We found no study of it. Blood flow follows what your tissues need, especially working muscles. Gentle twists are fine for moving your spine.
We found no evidence that it is. With vein problems, the European vascular surgeons' advice includes avoiding heat, and heat can make you light-headed when you stand up from the floor.
Break up the sitting. Short breaks of 2 to 3 minutes of leg movement every 20 to 30 minutes looked most helpful in studies, and the NHS says get up and move around every hour or so. Ankle pumps, calf raises and a short walk all count.
See a GP for leg pain on walking that eases with rest, or a sore on your leg that won't heal. Contact a GP immediately for burning leg or foot pain at rest, or toes that go cold and numb, then red or black, and call 999 for a foot or leg that suddenly turns cold, pale, numb, weak or very painful. Get same-day help for throbbing pain and swelling in one leg.
Exercise education, not a personal prescription, and clinical review of these guides is pending. If you are pregnant, have a health condition such as glaucoma, high blood pressure or osteoporosis, or have had recent surgery, check with a doctor, midwife or physiotherapist before starting, and stop for sharp or increasing pain. Health disclaimer.
