“These are not normal times in our nation,” New Jersey Democrat Cory Booker said as he launched into a speech overnight in the US Senate – and then proved his point by delivering one of the longest speeches in US political history.
Booker’s 25-hour marathon broke the record for the longest speech delivered by a sitting senator, surpassing Ted Cruz’s 21 hour 19 minute protest of the Affordable Care Act in 2013, and the record-setting filibuster of Strom Thurmond, a South Carolina senator who spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes against the Civil Rights Act of 1957.
Senator Cory Booker spoke for more than 25 hours without leaving the floor.
Senator Cory Booker spoke for more than 25 hours without leaving the floor.Credit: AP
Having enough material to go off is one thing; in his fiery riposte of President Donald Trump’s policies, Booker drew on letters from constituents and thick binders of material delivered by staffers. But how does the body hold up for 24 hours of non-stop speaking?
According to CNN, Cruz’s advice for 55-year-old Booker was: “Wear comfortable shoes and don’t drink water.” That advice reflects the most immediate discomforts of such a feat – a full bladder and sore feet.
Looking back to Thurmond, his biographer described his day-long 1957 filibuster as a “urological mystery”. Thurmond told reporters after the speech he had prepared by sitting in steam rooms for hours beforehand to dehydrate his body. (Colleagues later claimed he was fitted with a catheter.)
Men normally urinate seven to eight times in 24 hours. Booker reportedly sipped sparingly from two glasses of water sitting on his desk and did not leave the chamber to use the bathroom (in doing so, he would have lost the right to keep speaking).
The strain on Booker’s body from standing would have also been felt fast. One study found that, on average, lower back pain can set in after an hour and 10 minutes of continuous standing.
Two hours and 45 minutes into his speech, Booker reportedly asked a Senate page to remove his chair in case he was tempted to sit down (thereby losing the floor). A few hours after that, he began rocking back and forth and leaning more frequently on his podium, shifting on his black tennis shoes.
Standing continuously for too long can inflict sore feet, lower back pain and stiffness in the hips, back and shoulders. The legs and ankles swell as gravity causes blood to pool in the lower extremities.
“There appears to be general agreement among the study findings that prolonged standing without dynamic movement, even for periods as short as 30 minutes, leads to physical fatigue, discomfort, and pain in several body regions,” a review of research into the health effects of standing for long periods reported in 2015.
Texas senator Ted Cruz’s advice Booker: “Wear comfortable shoes and don’t drink water.”
Texas senator Ted Cruz’s advice Booker: “Wear comfortable shoes and don’t drink water.”Credit: AP
Long-term impacts of standing up too long without respite include a greater risk of varicose veins and chronic musculoskeletal pain. One study found people should avoid standing for longer than 40 minutes without a break.
And aside from the physical pain, there’s what’s happening in Booker’s brain. He reached the 24-hour point without sleep, which brings about drowsiness, impaired judgment, reduced co-ordination and the release of stress hormones cortisol and epinephrine.
That level of sleep deprivation is comparable to having a blood alcohol reading of 0.1, according to the US Centres of Disease Control.
Dr Garston Liang, a workload expert at Newcastle University, described Booker’s speech as a “gargantuan” cognitive effort.
“From a cognitive perspective, I’d say this person is a bit of an outlier,” he said. “You’re straining a lot of mental resources that you might have only a limited amount of. And for this individual, they’ve clearly pushed through usual signs of exhaustion, attention and fatigue to try to achieve a political outcome.”
The exorbitant mental workload and lack of sleep will cost Booker in coming days, Liang said, as the intense drain on mental resources blunts his “ability to operate normally” as he recovers from the 25-hour feat.
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