It’s not that your brain doesn’t know what to do. It’s that sometimes, you forget to give it what it needs to do it well. Sharpness, clarity, problem-solving — those don’t come from sheer willpower or another caffeine hit. They’re built from something a lot more fundamental: what you put in your body.
The foods you eat don’t just fuel your stomach. They build the very compounds your brain uses to fire neurons, process information, and keep you from zoning out in hour-long meetings or blanking out in front of a blinking cursor. Cognitive performance starts with chemistry, and chemistry starts with food. This isn’t about chasing brain “superfoods.” It’s about building habits around nutrition that actually let your brain show off a little.
It’s also about curiosity: paying attention to the relationship between what you eat and what you’re capable of.
When Your Diet Is Helping You Think and When It’s Not
Most people notice it intuitively. You have a bagel in the morning and feel sharp for an hour, then crash by 11. Or you skip lunch during back-to-back calls, and by 3 p.m. you’re reading the same sentence three times in a row. Or, on a better day, you have a solid, balanced breakfast — maybe something with complex carbs, fats, and protein — and you power through the whole morning without drifting off. That’s not a coincidence. That’s chemistry!
This relationship is especially important when your brain is expected to do real lifting: writing, strategizing, managing people, problem-solving, or even just listening well for a long stretch. People tend to think of these tasks as purely mental, disconnected from the body. Wrong! They’re incredibly physical; your brain, after all, is part of your body, and it’s an expensive organ to operate.
One way to see this in action is through companies that have built nutritional awareness into their cultures. At SAP, for example, employee wellness programs focus on mindfulness and on proper food. The business restructured campus cafeterias and snack offerings after seeing that teams were most productive when they had access to certain nutrients. A company dietitian told internal comms, “It’s not about perfect meals — it’s about giving your brain what it needs to stay alert and balanced.”
What you can learn from companies like SAP is simple: productivity isn’t just about meetings and tools. It starts at the lunch table.
Rice, Yes. But Not Just Any Rice
If you think of rice as the bland filler on the edge of a plate, it’s time to rethink this notion. The types of rice you eat actually make a difference when it comes to energy levels, blood sugar stability, and even inflammation.
E.g., brown rice breaks down more slowly than white rice, providing more even energy. Black and red rice are rich in antioxidants. Wild rice is technically a seed, and it’s full of protein and micronutrients that support brain function. Even white rice has its place: it’s easy to digest and useful when paired with fiber and fat.
This isn’t theory, either. At Blue Bottle Coffee, chefs began incorporating more whole grains, including black and red rice, into their staff meals. They noticed that employees who ate those meals reported feeling more energized through the second half of their shifts. “We’re in the business of quality and perception,” said one café manager. “If your brain is foggy, your customer experience suffers.”
Food, Performance and the Myth of Willpower
A lot of workplace performance is mistakenly framed as a question of grit or discipline. Show up early. Power through. Hustle harder. But if you’re not feeding your brain well, you’re setting yourself up for burnout, not brilliance. No amount of motivational posters or inspirational Slack messages can undo what your diet is doing wrong.
Just ask Shopify, where the People team explored connections between food, focus, and retention. After piloting a nutrition-conscious lunch program in one of its hubs, HR quietly tracked morale and turnover. Teams with better food access saw lower burnout and less attrition. This wasn’t just about giving people fancy perks; it was about reducing employee turnover by addressing the basics of how people feel every day.
One HR lead put it bluntly: “If someone’s physically crashing by 2 p.m. every day, they’re not sticking around long-term. We realized we had to feed people like we wanted them to stay.”
You could improve your career site. Or you could feed your people better. That might do more.
How Appraisals Get It Wrong and What Food Gets Right
In performance reviews, we often talk about results, output, or KPIs. But rarely do we ask what someone needed in order to deliver those things. When you’re relying on employee appraisals to tell the full story of a person’s performance, you’re missing a big part of the picture. Food, sleep, stress — these all play into how someone shows up.
At design firm IDEO, performance is assessed holistically. During one evaluation round, a manager noted how an employee seemed “less present and less sharp” during brainstorming sessions than in previous quarters. Rather than penalize the employee, they asked what had changed. It turned out the employee had stopped bringing lunch because they were overwhelmed by work. They were subsisting on office granola bars and caffeine.
After adjusting workload and offering catered team lunches, the difference was visible in days. “We saw the change not in numbers, but in ideas,” the manager said. “Their creativity came back.”
Small Shifts That Add Up
At Bumble, where creative problem-solving is a core part of the job, the office kitchen was redesigned with snacks and ingredients aimed at brain health: mixed nuts, boiled eggs, Greek yogurt, and rice bowls with different grain options. It wasn’t part of a flashy wellness campaign but a decision made quietly, based on feedback and fatigue surveys.
“By midweek, people were dragging,” said a senior operations manager. “We thought, what if we made it easier for their brains to keep up with their ambitions?”
The change wasn’t dramatic, but it was meaningful. Fewer energy crashes, more alert meetings, and a sense that the company actually cared about how people felt, not just what they produced.
Simply put, even subtle dietary improvements can change the vibe of a whole workplace.
Food That Feeds Your Mind, Not Just Your Calendar
A quick sandwich at your desk might check the box for “had lunch,” but it doesn’t do much for your performance. If you want your brain to show off — to crack a strategy no one else has solved, to write something sharp, to be generous in a tough conversation, it needs the right inputs. That means nutrients, not just calories.
At Adobe, employees are encouraged to take actual lunch breaks. There’s a culture of respecting mealtime, not rushing it. When surveyed, employees cited better post-lunch focus and fewer afternoon crashes compared to their pre-policy days.
One product designer put it best: “There’s a direct line between what I eat and how I think. I don’t treat lunch like an errand anymore — I treat it like prep.”
When You Stop Ignoring the Obvious
Everyone wants a secret. A neuro-hacking protocol. However, the real secret to better brain performance might be the most obvious one: eat better food.
Feed yourself like someone who’s about to do their best work, not just survive another workday. Make room for whole grains. Make space in your workday to eat what will help you focus. Notice how it affects your energy. Track how your brain responds.
Your mental performance is not just about discipline, talent, or caffeine. It’s about care. Give your brain what it needs, and it’ll show off when you need it most.
