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Human performance is the sustained capacity to think clearly, feel steady, and regulate behavior under pressure — well enough and long enough to meet the demand in front of an individual, with the resilience to recover afterward. It is a multi-domain construct spanning cognition, mood, self-regulation, and stress resilience, studied across military, aerospace, athletic, first-responder, and occupational settings where capacity must hold under load.
Its underlying biology includes HPA-axis regulation, reward and executive control, interoception, and inflammation and gut–brain signaling — interacting systems that shape how the brain thinks, feels, regulates, and recovers. Each is influenced by what and how a person eats, making nutrition a modifiable input into the biology that carries performance.
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Editorial responsibilityHow to cite this entry
CNP (2026). Human Performance. In CNP Encyclopedia Editorial Board (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Nutritional Psychology. The Center for Nutritional Psychology.
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