20/01/2026
Human Performance at Work: A Metabolic Perspective.
At Morgan Maxwell, we spend a lot of time thinking about human performance at work — attention, decision quality, resilience, and error tolerance.
An emerging and compelling area of research reframes these capabilities through the lens of brain metabolism and mitochondrial health.
Work by Chris Palmer suggests that many mental health and performance challenges may be better understood as issues of brain energy availability and metabolic efficiency, rather than motivation or willpower alone.
This perspective aligns with the broader field of metabolic psychiatry, including research and clinical work from Georgia Ede on glucose regulation and cognition, and Kelly Brogan, who highlights inflammation and mitochondrial function as key drivers of mental resilience.
From a performance standpoint, the implications are significant:
-Cognitive capacity is energy-dependent
-Fatigue is often metabolic, not behavioural
-Stable brain energy supports consistent focus, judgement, and resilience
As conversations around performance evolve, metabolism and mitochondrial health are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore — not just for wellbeing, but for sustained, reliable performance at work.