Three things that actually helped with the ankle and calf swelling by the end of my shifts, writing them down before I forget which ones worked and which were just wishful thinking.
– Knee-high compression socks instead of the ankle ones. I’d been wearing the cheap ankle kind for months assuming they were doing something, switched to a knee-high pair about 3 weeks ago, and the difference by hour 6 of an 8-hour shift is actually noticeable.
– 15 minutes with my feet up above my heart before dinner, not after. I used to come home and go straight into standing at the counter making dinner, which pretty much undid whatever the shift rest gave me. Now I lie on the floor with my calves on the couch cushions first.
– Cutting salt the day before a shift, not the day of. Probably sounds backwards, but same-day cutting barely did anything, the day-before version is the one that seems to matter.
None of it is dramatic on its own, just small stuff that added up enough that my shoes don’t feel tight by 8pm anymore.