When you suffer from back pain it can sometimes feel as though the simplest things are sources of agony. If you are a sufferer of chronic back pain then you know the problem all too well. You have probably spent most of your life trying to work around things that hurt you, getting new gadgets to make life easier, and doing stretches before braving a new activity. For that reason, the advice in this article may not be the most obvious, as we suspect you have already tried the obvious tricks.

But if you have recently suffered an injury, or are pregnant, you could do with adapting your house as well. Even if you will only suffer back pain a short while, adapting your house has two uses. First of all it will help protect your back from further injury. And secondly, it will make sure that whatever hurt your back in the first place does not affect you again. Although if you are a complete newcomer to the world of back pain it may be an idea to start with a few basics, such as installing hand rails in your shower and getting pressure cushions for your back. But besides that you can also...

1: Get rid of your hard mattress.

For a very brief period of time it was thought that the perfect way to protect yourself against back pain was to have a solid, firm mattress. The idea was that it replicated the ground, where many animals sleep, and this would strengthen our backs. The issue is, humans have not slept on the ground for millions of years, if ever. We are actually designed to sleep in soft nests, much like gorillas, and have been making ourselves nests since the dawn of time. Hard ground is actually, therefore, really bad for our backs.

2: Get rid of your old memory foam or non-pocket mattress.

Even though memory foam is amazing for our backs when it is new, when your memory foam mattress starts to have a permanent dip in it, it needs replacing, as it is no longer offering the same sort of support. Likewise, a mattress without enough springs will be too soft to offer the amount of support you need. Choose something firm with a little give.

3: Use stools.

It may seem counter-intuitive, but the best support for our backs is actually not artificial supports like chair backs and corsets, but our own natural muscles. When we sit on a chair, whether we are upright or slouching, we are letting the chair hold our back up. This leaves our muscles weak and open to injury. On the other hand, if we use a stool with no back we are forcing our back muscles to grow strong and support us, reducing the risk of injury.

4: Go barefoot.

Once again: the best support for our bodies is our own muscle system. When we go around in shoes that either offer full support or which bend and twist our feet and legs into unnatural positions, that tension carries all the way up to our backs, putting us at risk of lower back pain especially. Go barefoot at home as often as possible to loosen your leg and foot muscles and alleviate back pains.

5: Remove tripping hazards.

It should go without saying, but tripping is bad. Even if you do not actually fall over, every time you trip your muscles and joints are forced to tense and twist in order to rebalance you. This can cause an effect in our spines called torsion, which is basically the spine twisting. This effect not only causes temporary pain, but can cause long term damage. So remove all tripping hazards in your home.

6: Keep support items at elbow height.

Finally, if you regularly need to use support, such as railings, shower grips, a Zimmer frame, etc., then try and keep them always at elbow height. When our support items are below elbow height we are forced to bend over in order to use them. This stooping puts unnecessary stress on our spine and leaves us with tension and soreness.