As we get older, we often sleep less than we did when we were younger. However, that may not be a good thing. The American Heart Association recommends that adults get seven to nine hours of sleep per night. Just last month they added sleep to its list of factors critical to heart health, a list that includes seven others such as diet, physical activity and blood pressure. Their report jibes with a widening scientific consensus on the role sleep plays in helping prevent heart disease. “The more we learn, the more we know how instrumental sleep is to heart health,†Marie-Pierre St-Onge, associate professor of nutritional medicine and director of the Sleep Center of Excellence at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, told The Wall Street Journal.