Cooking for your adhd brain
If you, like many folks who struggle with ADHD, have the attention span of a raccoon behind an Arby’s on prom weekend, you already know the ADHD lifestyle can make eating and cooking nothing short of overwhelming. Sometimes it’s a nuisance, sometimes it’s sensory overload, and sometimes you forget about it altogether.
ADHD can make basic executive function feel like a full-time job. Your brain might feel like it’s always on — chasing dopamine, avoiding overwhelm, struggling to do The Thing, even if it’s the only thing keeping you alive. It might seem counterintuitive at first, but cooking might just be the most ADHD-friendly tool we have.
It’s sensory. It’s immediate. It rewards improvisation. You get to stir and taste and poke and play. There’s a rhythm to it that short-circuits the overwhelm spiral. Plus, you get the instant gratification of turning chaos into a meal — which is basically alchemy for the ADHD brain. Unlike a lot of self-care advice that feels condescending or out of reach (just meditate! just hydrate! just reorganize your entire life!), cooking meets you where you are: hungry, scattered, and in need of control over something.
So what should you eat if your brain is swinging between genius-mode and goblin-mode at any given hour? There’s no one-size-fits-all answer (hi, bioindividuality), but certain nutrients are always a balm for ADHD brains. Omega-3s (salmon, sardines, walnuts), magnesium (leafy greens, pumpkin seeds, dark chocolate), B-vitamins (eggs, meat, legumes), and protein — lots of it — to help stabilize blood sugar and make neurotransmitters do their thing.
Cooking for yourself means you get to play food detective — What helps me focus? What tanks my energy? What meals make me feel like I could finish an email and go outside, instead of choosing one and disappearing forever?
There are a lot of key little nuances in how you approach food. The things your body is craving are actually signals. We can optimize your brain to work better, find joy in eating, and not forget to do it.
When you cook, you start interpreting cravings differently— not just "I want sugar" but maybe "I haven’t eaten a real meal in 6 hours and my brain is waving a white flag." Sometimes that sweet craving is really your body begging for fuel. Sometimes your salt craving is about minerals. Sometimes you’re craving is emotionally driven, and that’s OK too. Cooking lets you investigate, not judge.
The truth is, our food culture is designed and determined to hijack your attention.
Salt, sugar, fat — the holy trinity of ultra-processed foods — are specifically engineered to hit your dopamine receptors like a slot machine, quite literally.
But when you start cooking, even just a little, you reclaim the narrative. You start tuning the volume back up on your own signals: hunger, satisfaction, mood, focus. And the wild part? When you actually nourish your body, you might find your “ADHD traits” are not broken parts of you to be fixed, but tools to be honed. Creativity, hyperfocus, problem-solving, lightning-fast intuition — those gifts get sharper when you’re fed, rested, and in your own rhythm.
Ready to get started? Let’s hone your superpowers through food.
