I very very rarely take a 9, for me its 11 hours or more if I can. Sometimes it is unavoidable if I have to make a specific booking time, but luckily the majority of the work I do is not timed. But there have been times in the past when three 15 hour days a week was normal.
When, as you say throw traveling time into that 9 hours then it will eat into the remaining time a bit. The worse thing is trying to wind down. As I get older, now approaching 65, I like to have at least 7 hours sleep a night, but years ago as a young 20-30 year old, four or five hours sleep a night was enough…or so I thought.
It was probably the lack of sleep, long hours, erratic eating times,the start up fumes from a Gardner 240, lack of exercise, smoking and drinking Jack Daniels by the bottle that probably contributed to me heart attack in my 50’s…yep on reflection that lack of sleep probably did it!