They always tell you to stretch and move your legs once a few hours on a flight to prevent blood clots, but why is this not a problem when we sleep daily and our legs are basically immobile for 8 hours?
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Your knees aren’t bent and your heart isn’t fighting gravity when you’re lying down. Bent knees can pinch blood vessels – not enough to stop blood flow, but enough to slow it down a bit and potentially trap clots enough for them to grow. Gravity also slows down your blood and causes that blood to pool in your legs. That lower circulation and pooling is what causes clots to start forming.
Yes, blood may pool a bit while you’re sleeping in whatever side of your body is down, but that’s distributed across a lot more of your body and without the restrictions of bent and crimped blood vessels. And, you’re a lot more mobile than you think at night. You may not be moving *much* but you’re still moving. You might roll over a bit and flex your muscles, which helps get your blood moving enough to prevent clotting.
The last big problem is when you stand up after a long plane ride you’re releasing all that pooled blood and potentially clotting blood all at once. Tiny *almost* clots are all moving together and may end up sticking together into a big clot. When you wake up, again any pooled blood is spread out so the tiny almost clots are spread out. You’re not getting up suddenly, you’re moving, stretching, rolling around, flexing muscles, sitting up…You’re giving a lot more time for your blood to start moving around and breaking up the almost clots before they can stick.
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