Today is National Train Your Brain Day when you are challenged to test yourself with puzzles and riddles. What does that have to do with my long recent health travails? Simple.

After nearly dying from severe septic shock and going through three operations in eight days I emerged physically exhausted. As I awoke, slightly dazed from the final more than four hour operation I worried how the whole experience would affect my brain. I knew right away where to turn while laid up in the hospital and then in rehab.

I am a big fan of the New York Times Daily Crossword puzzle (I subscribe to it on an app on my phone, which is all I had with me). I dug in and quickly caught up to the puzzles I had missed during the surgical period and have kept up, solving each puzzle each day since. I am no genius and don’t do it in ink and only sometimes do it with high speed. But I do solve each one and that has convinced me that my thought process was reasonably intact and that was a huge relief.

Bonus content: it is fun to write this blog because I also come into contact with other bloggers. If you are interested in brain functions and neural training stop by http://www.learnography.wordpress.com to follow the writing of Shiva Narayan, the principal of a school in Nepal! Fascinating.

As always you can find more at http://www.walterthinnes.com and on Twitter @walterthinnes