I usually feel like I need 9 hours sleep after a good workout. Am I doomed?
Let's say you get in bed, lights off, at 11 PM and wake up at 7 AM. Most people would call that an eight hour night of sleep. But in reality it takes the average person 20-30 minutes before actually falling into sleep. The average person also wakes up four or more times a night, sometimes for ten minutes or longer. Often we don't even remember all the times we get up. A lot of people also awaken before their scheduled wakeup times, and spend 20+ minutes in pre-dawn twilight.
Add it altogether and an "eight hour night" may actually only constitute 6.5 hours of actual physiological sleep. The only way to know for sure how much sleep you get is to use a device specifically designed for the purpose.
"Add it altogether and an "eight hour night" may actually only constitute 6.5 hours of actual physiological sleep. ".
According to the study 9 hrs of sleep is bad for your health (too much sleep). But that 9 hrs may actually constitute 8 hrs of actual physiological sleep. So 8 hrs of actual sleep is too much and is bad?
It's simple, but surprisingly effective. I figure, all the studies in the world are nice, but listening to the signals my body gives me is probably the best approach. 30 minutes is about the length of one more REM cycle, and I tend to find that I dream most vividly during those snooze sessions, and wake up remarkably refreshed by the end of them.
I would recommend the Oura ring with few reservations.
That's probably the best device for home-use. But sleep labs are using EEGs, cameras, microphones and puls oxymeters for a reason. Don't expect medical-grade results from a home-use device.
Less accurate are several kinds of fitness trackers/smart watches, very inaccurate are smartphone apps.
I use a Huawei Watch 2, and it tracks pretty accurately from what I've seen. Other Wear OS devices are probably similar.
When you do a hard workout for the first few times, there are a lot of neural adaptations. These result in very quick gains of strength within the first few weeks, I think mostly due to better muscle recruitment. At the same time, these neural adaptations are taxing on the brain/CNS. This is especially true of exercises that require intramuscular coordination. In my personal experience it makes it very hard to fall asleep when I learn a new, complex power exercise (e.g. campusing [1]). It also seems logical that you need more sleep for those neural adaptations to take place.
Now, once you are experienced in the exercise, there are much less neural adaptations, hence the perceived plateau in strength gains. The way you make gains now, is mostly through muscle growth (hypertrophy) which takes much longer but doesn't tax the CNS as much. This might explain your observation of needing less sleep after intense workouts, now that you have more experience in your sport. Try a new intense exercise and you will likely experience the above described process again. Just don't injure yourself!