A friend mentioned melatonin last weekend. Apparently he sometimes takes it to help him sleep at altitude (sleep seems necessary for acclimatization). I usually don't have problems sleeping if I've had a strenuous enough day beforehand.
I'm still thinking of experimenting with it .. the sleep research center at Stanford did a study several years ago that had to do with melatonin and people with fairly complete cervical spinal cord injuries. According to them, melatonin is naturally produced by the pineal gland in the brain, and this gland is somehow wired down through the cervical spinal cord. At the time I talked to the doctor in charge of the research, and he said that my injury probably wasn't enough to damage this wiring. Probably ..
Anyway, I did a forum search and found a few older threads. Any thoughts on melatonin since then ? Brands, dosage ?