Australia has new 24-hour Movement Guidelines: Will they help you to improve your health?
- Elissa Burton
- 3 days ago
- 6 min read
Physical activity guidelines have been around for decades. The World Health Organisation promotes them and many governments from individual countries also develop them, firstly to provide their citizens with information on how to live a healthy life and secondly in the hope that people who are not leading healthy lives will start doing these things to improve their health.
The new guidelines not only include physical activity, they also include sedentary behaviour and sleep for the first time. Physical activity has the usual definition of “any bodily movement generated by skeletal muscles that results in energy expenditure above resting levels” [1], in other words any time you move you’re being physically active. They also talk about different intensities, such as light, moderate or vigorous. They use lots of academic terminology to define each intensity in their larger report but it’s generally when you are not exerting yourself – slow walking, doing the dishes, you’re in light-intensity [1]. If you’re able to still chat to someone but are getting out of breath, that’s moderate-intensity, usually this happens when cycling, walking fast or jogging, swimming (not sure you can chat under water but that’s probably another blog in itself!!), and dancing or martial arts [1]. Whereas vigorous-intensity activity is when you are finding it difficult to have a conversation and includes things like sprinting, competitive sports like football, basketball and singles tennis [1].
Now why have they added in sedentary behaviour?
Sedentary behaviour includes very slow walking where little energy is used, sitting, reclining or lying down [1]. Examples are me at my desk-job sitting all day (I do get up every hour and try and have walking meetings), driving a car, and watching television or endlessly doom-scrolling social media on a device. This has now been included because it is not only the hours that we are physically active each day that are important, it is also the hours when we are sitting doing nothing or sitting doing something, those can be as bad or worse for our health and can potentially undo the right stuff like being active. The good thing about including sedentary behaviour is people may now think about it a little more and potentially act on it, if they can see and feel how it is making them feel (i.e. increased pain from sitting too long) they may change their routines and habits. Some examples of reducing sedentary behaviour are: if you’re watching television and an advert comes on, get up and walk to the furthest part of your home and back; if you have a small house, take a walk through the garden in the morning and afternoon; if you live in an apartment see how many flights of stairs you can walk each day. There are so many simple ways to just get up and move, it’s remembering to do it often throughout the day that can be the challenging part.
Sleep is an interesting one and also a new addition. There are so many aspects to sleep that researchers now look at. It might be how long you sleep for, the quality, when you go to bed, when you wake up, aspects of your life that make it easier or harder to sleep, there is so much involved and maybe I will do a blog in the future on this. There is a reason why the elite services such as Australia’s SAS (Special Elite Services Regiment which is part of the Australian Army) include many sleep deprivation activities because people behave differently when they are sleep deprived and they need to know how their recruits will react under pressure if this occurs. For any carers out there, sleep deprivation can become a large part of your caring role, whether you’re hearing the person you are caring for get up in the middle of the night for the toilet and staying awake to make sure they get back to bed safely, or perhaps they are living with dementia and are unsure of the time of day and think they need to get up and going. Sleep is critical and it is good to see it is getting the recognition it needs in maintaining good health.
So, now to the guidelines, what do they tell us is required for maintaining good health for older adults? Disappointingly, the brochure they have produced for the public combines adults 18 years and over with older adults 65 years and over into the one group [1,2]. Even those with a disability or chronic condition are lumped in together from 18 years through to any age!! I digress.
A healthy 24-hour period should include the following:
Physical activity [2]:
Moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activities for 30 minutes or more on most days
Muscle-strengthening activities on 2 or more days per week
Functional activities targeting mobility, balance, and coordination on 3 or more days per week
Several hours of light-intensity physical activity daily
Sedentary behaviour [2]:
Limit the amount of time spent being sedentary
Break up prolonged periods of sedentary behaviour as often as possible
Sleep [2]:
7-9 hours of good quality sleep for adults (7-8 hours for older adults), with consistent bed and wake up times
They also suggest you will gain greater health benefits if you replace your sedentary time with being more physically active and stated this can be any intensity of activity [2]. Try and replace some of your light-intensity activity with moderate to vigorous-intensity activity (if you’re already active, if not start slow and build up) and maintain sufficient sleep [2].
They also stated that following these guidelines is associated with a lower risk of death, lowers your likelihood of living with multiple chronic conditions, improves your physical function, pain management and quality of life [2].
It’s not really rocket science is it. Move more, sit less, go a little harder and challenge yourself a little bit every day and get enough good quality sleep.
A really critical part of these guidelines that they didn’t include in the public brochure is that these recommendations need to become continuous lifelong habits. Not simply because you have a wedding coming up and want to look good or plan to trek up Machu Pichu so you need to get fit or you are rehabbing from an injury. Our health is essential for doing everything we enjoy, and also the stuff we don’t enjoy, but still have to do (chores anyone), yet humans tend to be a little hit and miss at times in how we treat our bodies and look after our health. We often think it’ll be ok I can get to that tomorrow.
What about getting to it today, it’s up to you, I know you can do it, I believe in you.
If you are doing 30-minutes of moderate or vigorous-intensity activity like walking fast, running, swimming, playing sports every day, good on you, keep going
Do you do anything to strengthen your muscles each week? If you do, keep going. If you are unsure what to do, how to start, I will be writing an upcoming blog on this, stay tuned. Twice a week doesn’t tell us much, I will give you more information on what you can do to keep your strength up at any age
Mobility, balance and coordination training 3 times a week – this was disappointing too, what does that mean to the general population? Do you know what to go out and do 3 times a week? I will go into more detail to help you achieve this in an upcoming blog too
How sedentary are you? A simple fix, get up, move more, do things you enjoy, especially with people you love spending time with. Watching things on a screen about other people you likely don’t even know will always be there, your friends and family won’t be there forever, make the most of the time you have with people who make you happy.
There is nothing better than a good night’s sleep. Sometimes life doesn’t allow the luxury of that happening, especially when you have just had a baby or are caring for someone who likes to be up at night, this can be very challenging. Getting support from others so you can have a rest, and a few good night’s sleep is essential to you maintaining that caring role for longer. Please don’t be afraid to reach out to others for help. If the first person says no, reach out to someone else, I would like to think everyone has at least one good human in their life who will help in a crisis. Lack of sleep over long periods is a crisis, let’s be kind and help each other.
Live the good life!
References
[1] Commonwealth of Australia, Department of Health, Disability and Ageing. (2025). Australian 24‑hour movement guidelines for adults (18 to 64 years) and older adults (65+ years): An integration of physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep (Version for policy makers, health professionals and researchers). Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing. https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/2026-03/australian-24-hour-movement-guidelines-for-adults-18-to-64-years-and-older-adults-65-years.pdf
[2] Australian Government, Department of Health, Disability and Ageing. (2026, March). Physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep: 24‑hour movement guidelines for health and wellbeing. Guidelines for adults & older adults (18 years and over) [Brochure]. Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing. https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/2026-03/24-hour-movement-guidelines-for-adults-older-adults-18-and-over-brochure.pdf
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