Effects of Muscle Dysmorphia | Is Bodybuilding a Mental Illness?

08 Dec Effects of Muscle Dysmorphia | Is Bodybuilding a Mental Illness?

Is bodybuilding making you mentally ill? For most of the population, the answer would be no!

But spitting out facts, there’s some evidence that bodybuilding may not be a complete package for good health as it’s hyped up to be.

It might work for one part of health or the physical form, but when it comes to mental health, the psychology of bodybuilding plays a key role.

So, what exactly does bodybuilding have to do with your mental health; is it a recipe for more stress in your life?

Partly yes, and partly no, because bodybuilding can sometimes be a mental illness in the most shocking findings.

Is Bodybuilding a Mental Illness?

The trend for bodybuilding started with the idea of a perfect body flaunted by celebrities and popularized by social media.

With the motivation coming right through every second, you spend on a social media platform, the dream of getting a cut physique attracts many to join the queue outside the gym.

But today what motivates bodybuilders to go on has also taken up a huge role in pulling down their mental health.

The graph of such psychological effects can cause several impacts on your mental health and well-being, ranging from:

• Moderate stressful events
• Depression
• Lack of body positivity

However, out of all these, the most serious psychological condition that has come to light in recent years is muscle dysmorphia.

Bodybuilding and Muscle Dysmorphia

Muscle dysmorphia is a type of body dysmorphic disorder mainly characterized by the development of wrong ideas about one’s muscularity.

People suffering from mental conditions often assume their bodies to be weaker and smaller despite being muscular enough.

Since the insecurities are mostly about muscles and lean mass, the group that is mostly affected by the condition is bodybuilders.

There is also a study that compares the prevalence of MD symptoms among bodybuilders, strength athletes, and fitness practitioners.

According to the reports from the study, bodybuilders out of all these groups showed the most generalized symptoms of muscle dysmorphia.

Earlier, researchers suggested that such an MD graph among bodybuilders could be due to unmet psychological needs.

But the recent reports on the same have brought in more intel on the muscle dysmorphia causes.

Causes of Muscle Dysmorphia

A recent study from Motivation and Emotion has deduced a more reasonable conclusion on what possibly can cause MD.

Earlier, researchers had concluded that MD also known as bigorexia occurred when people were not able to meet their basic psychological needs.

However, these were mainly related to samples of female body dysmorphia, but this recent report highlighted that:

The frustration that people go through in their lives, whether it’s competition stress or the fight to keep their lives online, drives them to different adaptive strategies.

Two such strategies include achieving an ideal body as popularized by the media, and the other one is to compensate for all the bad with better health.

But to succeed in these strategies, the mind deviates from the goal and lands into the pathological condition of muscle dysmorphia.

In short, the causes of MD can be:

1. Perfectionism – The urge among people to have the perfect physique can either make them overstressed on how to achieve it, or make them insecure about the body that they already have.
2. Poor self-esteem – People with low self-esteem turn towards bodybuilding that helps them cope and gives them a body that earns them respect. Looking at the overwhelming results, they get into over-exercising and often become dissatisfied with what they have achieved.

Owing to such underlying causes behind Muscle Dysmorphia, people suffer from many compulsive behaviors and visible signs.

Effects of Muscle Dysmorphia

Generalized symptoms of muscle dysmorphia are associated with performing activities that are directed toward enhancing your appearance.

Some common behavioral changes that people with MD often show include:

1. Indulging in excessive weightlifting exercises
2. Following a rigid, unnecessary diet that hampers health
3. Excessive use of dietary supplements
4. They avoid social gatherings and invest most of their time exercising
5. Try to hide their physique and are insecure about their appearance
6. Extremely anxious conditions.

Another aspect of bodybuilding that can have a serious impact on your mental health is competitive bodybuilding.

Competitive Bodybuilding and Mental Health

Competitive bodybuilding is a popular sport among a vast proportion of the population where you build a physique to compete with others.

It involves different stages that your body goes through to get into the leanest form of your physique.

Stages of Competitive Bodybuilding

Competitive bodybuilding is divided into:

The first stage is the bulking stage where you consume a diet loaded with surplus energy that’s more than your calorie expenditure. It mainly involves eating carbohydrate-dense foods.

The second stage is the lean phase focused on reducing all the fat that you have gained during the bulking phase while retaining the muscles.

These different cycles that an individual goes through to get that perfect body for the competition can instigate mental discomfort.

Effects of Competitive Bodybuilding on Mental Health

Competitive bodybuilding demands a body with absolute lean mass, where your body fat could be as low as 12 to 10%.

Such a low-fat percentage can only be achieved when your diet has very few carbohydrates.

Keeping the diet low profile makes your hormonal secretions vary, which could take a toll on your mental health, causing constant mood swings.

Another aspect of competitive bodybuilding that has a great impact on mental health is the post-competition phase.

During the competition, people stick to certain restrictions in diet, but post winning the competition, a celebration is an obvious moment.

But since your body has become accustomed to starvation, the celebratory diet or food doesn’t fit in the body as people want it to.

Rather, the food turns into fat storage, causing sudden weight gain.

This weight gain becomes a concern, which when consistent for the long term, can develop into body insecurities and even depression.

However, bodybuilding is not always bad for mental health. At times, it serves as a distraction from your mental stress.

Thus, bodybuilding is not a mental illness unless you are doing it for the right reasons and not because you are insecure about how you look and you need validation from others to compensate for that feeling.

Since bodybuilding is a dedicated process and often demands a lot of mental as well as physical effort from the practitioner, it makes sense to take steps to maintain mental health while trying to bulk.

How to Manage Mental Health While Bodybuilding? 6 Tips

Managing mental health was never a concern for bodybuilders because until now it was only seen as a positive addition to mental health.

But now, it’s important to keep a holistic approach towards bodybuilding, as there are also lots of hidden stresses that you don’t realize while bodybuilding, like:

• Matching the expectations that people have from you
• Juggling your time between different exercises and daily activities
• Preparing food
• Managing your sleep cycle

There are two possible ways of maintaining a great physique without letting your bodybuilding goals overwhelm you mentally.

While the physical tips mainly involve lifting weights and looking after the amount of protein you need for bodybuilding, nonphysical ways focus on activities that improve neural activities.

#1. The Diet

Just like other parts of the body, your brain too needs adequate fuelling to function in the right manner. Although a diet for bodybuilding has some elements that nourish the brain, that’s not enough.

What you must additionally add to your bodybuilding diet are:

Vitamins and Minerals:

• Vitamin B complex
• Minerals
• Vitamin A and C
• Phytonutrients
• Vitamins D and E

Take B vitamins, for instance. These are pretty necessary to regulate mood and brain chemicals. Those who are deficient in B vitamins are often at a greater risk for depression. The same applies to Vitamin D too.

So, your focus shouldn’t be only on protein. Rather, you must include other micronutrients in your diet plan as well. Plus, these nutrients don’t add much to the calories.

Fruits and Vegetables

There are many nutrients present in green leaves and colorful fruits that can sharpen your memory and focus and improve brain health.

Water

Staying hydrated is important for the right amount of oxygen to reach your brain cells and to keep your electrolytes balanced.

#2. Working Up the Brain Cells

Along with bodybuilding for exercising your muscles, you must also try certain exercises for your brain.

These exercises could be activities that challenge your brain. Such activities improve the functions of neurotransmitters or the factors that cause nerve conduction.

Since there are two hemispheres of the brain, left and right, each of these sides can be trained with the help of different activities.

Left brain exercises:

• Try solving crossword puzzles
• Include puzzles and numerical in your daily routine
• Analyze different information to frame an analytical piece
• Practice brain teasers and trivia questions

Right brain exercises:

Since the right side is more inclined towards creating thinking, try inculcating the following activities:

• Creative art
• Writing and reciting poems
• Abstract thinking

Pick two or three activities from the list and get going. After a few days, you will feel your mental health is more balanced. Including these activities will also take up some of your time which you could have used otherwise to overthink or have inner self-critical dialogues.

#3. Lifestyle

A healthy lifestyle is important to keep your mind clean from any toxicity. Start with maintaining a clean environment to drive out any negative thoughts.

The second and most important part of keeping your mental health is avoiding alcohol and smoking as much as you can.

Both alcohol and smoking can lower the amount of oxygen reaching your brain. Not to mention, smoking affects bodybuilding in devastating ways.

An inadequate amount of oxygen supply to your brain can affect the secretions of hormones, further affecting your mood.

#4. Relaxing Techniques

The main cause of stress is when we overthink and focus on something that is not under our control.

Hence, the best way to prevent any mental illness from bodybuilding is to avoid thinking about things that are beyond your control.

You can also try out relaxation techniques to ease yourself; one such technique is deep breathing which calms your mind by releasing endorphins.

Start with inhaling deep with your nose, pulling as much air as you can into your lungs. Now, hold your breath for 5 seconds, count to 5, and exhale from your mouth on 5.

However, if during practice, you become dizzy, switch to normal breathing.

Other ways of relaxation include yoga, tai chi, and meditation.

#5. Supplements

Some of the best supplements that you can try out for reducing stress and keeping your mind fresh are:

Bacopa Monnieri has many abilities to improve your cognitive health and was used as an ancient medication to treat mental health problems.

Basil is another popular pick from Indian Ayurveda, used for reducing stress and anxiety and improving other aspects of cognitive health.

L-theanine is commonly found in green tea and has many properties that make it a great fit for keeping your mind at peace. It has a calming effect on the body with little to no side effects.

#6. Laughter Remedy

Genuine laughter therapy can get you through a lot of health issues, including even the slightest mental stress.

Expressing your emotions can also be a helpful tool for cutting out stress-causing hormones and suppressing them with happy hormones.

Final Note from Horizon Clinics

Thus, bodybuilding is not a mental illness until you let it control your entire thought process, and you shouldn’t get self-critical in the process.

Bodybuilding is a popular way of deflecting negative thoughts, with social media as the main platform that popularized it.

However, when you submit to bodybuilding completely, it might draw your mental state from a positive state to a completely negative attitude that only leaves you mentally drained.

This could cause mild depression signs to even severe forms of psychological disorders like muscle dysmorphia that can affect the personality traits of bodybuilders.

Hence, along with bodybuilding, keeping your mind fit is also important.

So, what are the bodybuilding mental health tips you follow to stay sane during the cutthroat competition?