Feeling forgetful? Don’t jam on the java or reach for a Red Bull. You’re better off going to bed to refresh and refuel your memory, say researchers demonstrating for the first time how your brain uses sleep to store information.

Your brain behaves fundamentally differently during sleep than when you’re awake, says Marcos Frank, PhD, assistant professor of neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. During sleep your brain is busy at the cellular level boosting the strength of its connections, creating stronger ties to your memories and experiences.

"It's like you've thrown a switch, and all of a sudden, everything is turned on that's necessary for making synaptic changes that form the basis of memory formation. It's very striking," says Dr. Frank of the research he and his colleagues recently published in Neuron.

These findings line up with prevailing research that shows napping beats caffeine and other stimulants hands down in boosting brainpower.

In one study that compared the ability of participants to recall words and perform basic motor skills, like typing, folks who took a short afternoon nap significantly outperformed caffeinated counterparts who tried to boost their brains with coffee, says Sara Mednick, a University of California San Diego researcher who published her group’s findings in Behavioural Brain Research.

Their findings jive with evidence that suggests while caffeine improves alertness it may hamper your ability to recall words or do simple physical tasks. By blocking a chemical in our brains that calms us, caffeine may impair in the short term how we remember new information, researchers wrote.