Cory Booker Releases Oura Ring Data From His 25-Hour Speech
Cory Booker, the senior Democratic senator from New Jersey, stood on the Senate floor for over 25 hours last week as he delivered what proved to be the longest speech in the chamber's history — breaking the previous record of 24 hours and 18 minutes held by Strom Thurmond, the Dixiecrat who in 1957 filibustered to delay the passage of the Civil Rights Act.
Armed with several binders of data and bipartisan anecdotes spanning topics ranging from the economy to civil rights, Booker used the time to rail against president Donald Trump's policies. He repeatedly declared that America is in a "moral moment," and — invoking the late senator and civil rights leader John Lewis — urged both citizens and lawmakers to get in "good trouble" in protest of the current administration.
And though he understandably showed some signs of fatigue towards the end of the 25-plus hour address, he maintained an impressive cogency, in what was ultimately an extraordinary feat of mental and physical stamina.
Suffice to say that this was a serious physical accomplishment. And throughout the record-breaking filibuster, Booker wore an Oura Ring, which is a popular wearable fitness device that collects and compiles health data about the wearer including heart rate, skin temperature, blood oxygen levels, and more. (That said, while the gadget has a cult following, its users will readily admit that the ring isn't perfect.)
Following his performance, Booker provided Men's Health with screenshots of the smart device's findings. As it turns out? Delivering a 25-hour-plus speech without breaks, food, and hardly any water is pretty taxing on the body, actually!
As the screenshots show, Booker's Oura Ring showed him having a "good" night's sleep the night before he launched his filibuster, which began at 7 PM on March 31st. He also had stable stress levels, and a general "Readiness Score" of a solid 75 percent.
Once the New Jersey rep took the floor, however, that changed. Per Men's Health, Booker's smart ring reported an elevated heart rate — it remained over 100 beats per minute over the 25 hours, which is considered high — and elevated stress levels overall. The device also clocked just 15 minutes of "restorative time," though it reported a sky-high "Activity Level" and a step count of over 20,000. (Booker told Men's Health that he was "shifting back and forth a lot to try to get blood flowing through my legs" after they started to go numb around the three-hour mark.)
The senator's sleep report, unsurprisingly, showed nothing.
"There's a lot of movement, but there's just no sleep data," Booker told Men's Health. "I thought they would put something on there."
It's hard to overstate the stamina it took for Booker, who is 55 years old, to not only stay standing throughout his address, but to remain intellectually lucid. Ryan Bolton, the Director of High Performance at USA Triathlon, said Booker's energetic output was "comparable" to that of race car drivers, who maintain an elevated heart rate level over the course of hours while they race.
Elsewhere, the senator told The New York Times that he took Motrin to help with muscle pain. He also stopped eating and drinking well in advance of the marathon speech to avoid bathrooms breaks, and maintains that he didn't wear a diaper during it.
As for his post-filibuster recovery, Booker admitted to Men's Health that his hips and especially his feet took the worst blows — his feet were "in really bad shape," he told the magazine — and compared his general physical state to a very specific memory from his days playing Division One college football.
"When I played football, Oregon State had the worst turf in the whole Pac-10," Booker, an alumni of Stanford University's football team, told Men's Health. "It was like they just spray-painted concrete. And the next day, everything ached from running on what was like a parking lot."
"I woke up after getting a little bit of sleep after the 25 hours, and felt that way," he added, though noted that he felt "the soreness even more" the day after.
More on devices: Let's Talk About Botched Weiner Implants
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