In my errant youth, I was fascinated by a TV serial called ‘Star Trek’ and repeatedly watched the episodes of that show. For those uninitiated in the field of junk science fiction TV shows, the story line of Star Trek is roughly as follows\u2014a group of intrepid space travellers use a space ship propelled by novel technology to explore the universe. The captain is a human and he has a diverse bunch of aliens acting as his crew. The first officer of the ship is a Vulcan\u2014a human-like species. The Vulcans though human in appearance have com\u00acplete control over their emotions.<\/p>\n
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They operate solely on logic in all matters and are completely unruffled by emotional tur\u00acmoil around them. It seems that in the distant past the Vulcans were a very emotional race and fought endless wars before they mastered the technique of controlling their emotions.<\/p>\n
Well, the whole point of bringing Star Trek trivia is that there are some people whom we meet every\u00acday who have a good degree of control over their emotions. The correct scientific terminology for describing their per\u00acsonality is repressive. They appear calm in everything they do. They seem to have their life ordered and we sometime wish that we would have their nature. They don’t appear to have many stressors; they describe themselves as successful and accomplished.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, it is not just their feelings but studies have shown such people to be successful and ac\u00accomplished in their fields. So, what is the problem? It turns out that these people show an elevated stress response. They have glucocorticoids levels similar to those of anxious people and they show increased sympathetic activation. Interestingly, these people show no symptoms of being anxious. In fact, the opposite is true and they appear to lead a pretty disci-plined life. So how do they do it?<\/p>\n
Research has revealed that such people have extra activity in an area of the brain that inhibits emotion\u2014the frontal cortex. This is the area that inhibits impulsive behaviour and cognition. Modern imag\u00acing techniques have shown that repressive people have un\u00acusually high activity in the frontal area when stressed. It seems like their brain is working overtime to regain control and retain their balance. Ultimately these individuals pay the price for all their order and discipline. The extra stress-response hormones and activity of the sympathetic system result in lowered immunity and a greater risk of cardiovascular dis\u00acease. I wonder if the same problems affect the Vulcans?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"