Muscle dysmorphia is a subtype of obsessive mental disorder body dysmorphic disorder but is often also grouped with eating disorders. In muscle dysmorphia, which is sometimes called bigorexia, megarexia, or reverse anorexia, the delusional or exaggerated belief is that one’s own body is too small, too skinny, insufficiently muscular, or insufficiently lean. Although in most cases, the individual’s build is normal or even exceptionally large and muscular already. For this a person goes through mental agony but not to worry; Siddha Spirituality of Swami Hardas Life System has explained everything about muscle dysmorphia for well-being.
Muscle dysmorphia Definition
Research suggests that “as many as 1,00,000 people or more worldwide meet the formal diagnostic criteria in the general population.” Additionally, it can affect anyone, however appears to be more prevalent in males.
What is Muscle dysmorphia?
Muscle dysmorphia affects mostly men, particularly those involved in sports where body size or weight are competitive factors, becoming rationales to gain muscle or become leaner. The quest to seemingly fix one’s body consumes inordinate time, attention, and resources, as on exercise routines, dietary regimens, and nutritional supplementation. The use of anabolic steroids is also common. Other body-dysmorphic preoccupations that are not muscle-dysmorphic are usually present as well.
Is Muscle dysmorphia alarming?
Although likened to anorexia nervosa, muscle dysmorphia is especially difficult to recognize, since awareness is scarce and persons experiencing muscle dysmorphia typically remain healthy looking. The distress and distraction of muscle dysmorphia may provoke absences from school, work, and social settings. Compared to other body dysmorphic disorders, rates of suicide attempts are especially high with muscle dysmorphia. Researchers believe that muscle dysmorphia’s incidence is rising, partly due to the recent cultural emphasis on muscular male bodies.
Muscle dysmorphia Symptoms
Some of the symptoms or signs of muscle dysmorphia include the following:
- Maintaining an exercise program that is extreme.
- Giving up work obligations or social activities on a regular basis due to an obsessive need to maintain one’s workout and diet schedule.
- Constantly “mirror checking” or completely avoiding the mirror.
- Working out despite illness or injury.
- Using supplements excessively.
- Extreme anxiety if an individual misses a workout.
Muscle dysmorphia Causes
It’s not known specifically what causes muscle dysmorphia or body dysmorphic disorder. Like many other mental health conditions, muscle dysmorphia/body dysmorphic disorder may result from a combination of issues, such as a family history of the disorder, abnormalities in the brain, and negative evaluations or experiences about your body or self-image.
What are the risk factors of Muscle dysmorphia?
Muscle dysmorphia’s development is unclear. However, several risk factors include:
Trauma and bullying
Versus the general population, persons manifesting muscle dysmorphia are more likely to have experienced or observed traumatic events like sexual assault or domestic violence, or to have sustained adolescent bullying and ridicule for actual or perceived deficiencies such as smallness, weakness, poor athleticism, or intellectual inferiority. Increased body mass may seem to reduce the threat of further mistreatment.
Sociopsychological traits
Low self-esteem is associated with higher levels of body dissatisfaction and muscle dysmorphia. Increased body size or muscularity may seem to enhance the masculine identity.
Media exposure
As Western media emphasize physical attractiveness, some marketing campaigns now exploit male body-image insecurities. Over the past 20 years, the number of fitness magazines and of partially undressed, muscular men in advertisements have increased.
Such media provoke bodily comparisons and pressure individuals to conform, yet increase the gap between men’s perceptions of their own muscularity versus their desired muscularity. In college-aged men, a strong predictor of a muscularity quest is an internalization of the idealized male bodies depicted in media.
Athletic participation
Athletes tend to share some psychological factors that may predispose them to muscle dysmorphia, factors including high levels of competitiveness, need for control, and perfectionism, and athletes tend to be more critical of their own bodies and body weight. Athletes who also fail to their sports performance goals may escalate efforts to modify their builds, efforts that overlap those of muscle dysmorphia.
Involvement in sports where size, strength, or weight, whether higher or lower, implies competitive advantage associated with muscle dysmorphia. Athletic ideals reinforce the social ideal of muscularity. Conversely, those already disposed to muscle dysmorphia may be more likely to participate in such sports.
Muscle dysmorphia in women
A small 1999 study examined a group of 10 female bodybuilders who had previously experienced sexual assault. Two of the women had experienced muscle dysmorphia before the assault. However, after they had experienced the assault, all 10 had MD, and 7 began using steroids. The results of this study suggest that MD may have been developed as a coping mechanism for the trauma.
Muscle dysmorphia Assessment
Factors that contribute to the development of MD can be assessed with the Muscle Dysmorphic Disorder Inventory.
How Muscle dysmorphia is Treated?
Evidence supports the efficacy of family-based therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and pharmacotherapy with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Also limited is research on the prognosis of the untreated.
Family-based therapy
It is an intensive outpatient program that seeks to avoid hospitalization and instead actively engages parents in the process of restoring their child to a healthy weight at home. FBT treats anorexia first and foremost as a medical illness and uses food as a therapeutic agent.
“Children and teens with anorexia aren’t capable of making good choices about their health. The choice they make is that kids have to eat. We don’t have any good pharmacology for anorexia; food is the medicine, and it works.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy
CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) is a type of psychotherapeutic treatment that helps people learn how to identify and change destructive or disturbing thought patterns that have a negative influence on behavior and emotions.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy focuses on changing the automatic negative thoughts that can contribute to and worsen emotional difficulties, depression, and anxiety. These spontaneous negative thoughts have a detrimental influence on mood. Through CBT, these thoughts are identified, challenged, and replaced with more objective, realistic thoughts.
Pharmacotherapy
Pharmacotherapy is the treatment of health conditions by using pharmaceutical products (drugs) as medication. When the health condition is a drug dependency, pharmacotherapy involves replacing the drug of dependence with a legally prescribed substitute.
The use of prescribed pharmaceuticals can help as part of a comprehensive treatment plan. Opioid pharmacotherapy is the use of medications, combined with counseling and behavioral therapies, to treat opioid dependence.
Muscle dysmorphia Prevalence
Prevalence estimates for muscle dysmorphia have greatly varied, ranging from 1% to 54% of men in the studied samples. Samples of gym members, weightlifters, and bodybuilders show higher prevalence than do samples from the general population.
The disorder is rare in women but does occur, and has been noted especially in female bodybuilders who have experienced sexual assault. Crossing cultures, muscle dysmorphia has been identified in:
- China,
- South Africa, and
- Latin America.
Nonwestern populations less exposed to western media show lower rates of muscle dysmorphia.
Muscle dysmorphia Reclassifications
Muscle dysmorphia’s classification has been widely debated, and alternative DSM classifications have been proposed as:
Eating disorder
Many of muscle dysmorphia’s traits overlap with those of eating disorders, including a focus on body weight, shape, and modification. Whereas body dysmorphic disorder otherwise usually lacks such dietary and exercise components.
Also, persons experiencing muscle dysmorphia tend to score high on the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT) and Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI), while muscle dysmorphia and anorexia nervosa share diagnostic crossover. Muscle dysmorphia and disordered eating correlate more to each other than either correlate to body dysmorphic disorder. Treatment for eating disorders may also be effective for muscle dysmorphia.
Behavioral addiction
Some researchers seek muscle dysmorphia’s reclassification as a behavioral addiction. Muscle dysmorphia’s effort to maintain body image is enacted through activities such as exercise, diet, and related shopping, which may cause conflicts with others.
Moreover, compulsive muscle building and dietary restriction can escalate these conflicts. Further, abstinence from these activities can provoke withdrawal symptoms, returning the individual to compulsive behavior.
Home remedies for Muscle dysmorphia
Physical activity and exercise can help manage many symptoms, such as depression, stress, and anxiety. Consider walking, jogging, swimming, gardening, or taking up another form of physical activity you enjoy. However, avoid excessive exercise as a way to fix a perceived flaw.
Ayurveda for Muscle dysmorphia
Muscle dysmorphia is when you believe you are less attractive looking than you actually are. A classic example is an anorexic who believes they are overweight. More subtle examples include preoccupation with some trivial defect, such as acne.
MD (muscle dysmorphia) or distorted self-image is likely to aggravate the following doshas and biocharacteristics. If you have a systemic imbalance of one of these doshas or biocharacteristics, Ayurveda would generally recommend removing, substituting, or lessening the frequency of ‘Muscle dysmorphia/Distorted self-image.
How does Yoga help overcome Muscle dysmorphia?
Helps in creating a bridge between the Body and Mind
Alongside helping in creating a bridge between the physical and mental, Hatha yoga can also help in creating a better mental space for the individual. In hatha yoga, the exercises are designed to facilitate deep breathing and relaxation, which in turn help the mind relax.
Begin to understand
They may begin to understand that their body is more than the emotions they react with to it and begin to lose some of the anxiety and obsessiveness that often accompanies dysmorphia.
Become much-satisfied being
More importantly, on a much broader level, Hatha yoga and its philosophy teaches you to be away from attachment towards the non-real physical things and helps you to develop a gaze so that start accepting your emotions, body as they are. Thus leading us to become much-satisfied beings.
Replacement for therapy and medical help
While in no way a replacement for therapy and medical help, Hatha yoga is definitely a beneficial supplement to therapy for muscle dysmorphia and body dysmorphic disorder, one that is often recommended by both therapists and recovering individuals.
Alongside aiding in dysmorphia, Hatha yoga also has a number of other positive benefits, and integrating it into one’s life can help in kickstarting a more healthy lifestyle that focuses on capability, functionality, and a better mind-body connection.
Siddha remedies for Muscle dysmorphia
1. Siddha preventive measures
Everybody must practice Siddha preventive measures, whether a person is affected with Muscle dysmorphia or not, but preventive measures are the primary steps for switching on to any other Siddha remedies, and hence they are important. It helps in one’s capability, effectiveness, productivity, decision-making power, intellectuality, and removing minor health problems. There are three types of preventive measures:
- Earthing – performed for removing and earthing the negativity of our body
- Field cleaning – cleans the energy field (Aura) of our body
- Siddha brain exercise/Energizing – energizes our brain for proper functionality
Everybody’s tendency is to get attracted to the word ‘free, however, don’t neglect even these Siddha preventive measures are free. Avail of the benefits by practicing them sincerely, and regularly. For the ease of understanding what Siddha preventive measures are, please watch a video for a live demonstration.
2. Siddha Shaktidata Yog
This unique Siddha Shaktidata Yog of Siddha Spirituality can solve the problems related to Muscle dysmorphia with Siddha remedies. There is no compulsion of training of ‘Swami Hardas Life System’ methods. This not only gives benefits to self but also it can be used for other affected persons, whether a person is in the same house, distantly available in the same city, same nation, or might be in any corner of the world, however, both the procedures have been explained here.
3. Siddha Kalyan Sadhana
Recite this Sadhana with a Sankalp “My problems of Muscle dysmorphia are solved as early as possible and I should gain health”, which should be repeated in mind 3 – 3 times every after each stanza. Any person irrespective of caste, creed, religion, faith, sex, and age can recite this Sadhana for free, which should be repeated at least twice a day. To know more, please click on this link.
4. CCPE products for Muscle dysmorphia
These products work on the concepts of ‘Conceptual Creative Positive Energy’ (CCPE) within the provisions of the ‘CCPE Life System’ and the theory of Quantum Technology to a certain extent. However, the products get activated only whenever touched by a human and then they become capable of solving the problem and achieving health. However, please use these products for Muscle dysmorphia as mentioned below:
CCPE Extractor: The CCPE Extractor should be gently moved over the Agya Chakra in a circular motion at least for 30 to 60 seconds, thereafter, follow the same process on the head which finishes within almost 1-2 minutes.
CCPE Booster: Keep one Booster over the Agya Chakra and another over the head for 3 minutes. You may need to have 2 Boosters, which establishes positivity.
CCPE Booster Powder: Mix a pinch of CCPE booster powder with a few drops of coconut oil and make a paste. Apply it over the forehead and leave it for about 30 minutes. Repeat the process every after 2 hours.
5. UAM for Muscle dysmorphia
For quick and effective results, it is advisable to learn the unique methods of the Swami Hardas Life System. A trained person can only apply the UAM method himself/herself and become capable of healing others.
A daily routine
In general, a daily routine may look like this:
- Consume Sattvic diet
- Perform breathing exercises regularly
- Consider walking, swimming, or another form of physical activity you enjoy
- Perform Ashtanga Yoga or Hatha Yoga regularly
- Apply free Siddha remedies a minimum 3 times a day, as explained above
- Perform Swayamsiddha Agnihotra daily, either self or caretaker can perform
- In case, if someone wishes to learn advanced methods of Swami Hardas Life System, undergo unique training
Ensure to sprinkle in some fun during the day: Don’t forget to relax and laugh in between. Laughing is a great way to boost your immune system and help you.
Along with all the above activities, apply above explained free Siddha remedies minimum 3 times a day, the more is good. Just try the methods of Siddha Spirituality of Swami Hardas Life System. I am confident that you will surely find improvements within 3 days.
Training of Swami Hardas Life System
Any health, peace, and the progress-related problem can be solved independently by undergoing Swami Hardas Life System training. It needs no money and medicines. Any person irrespective of religion, caste, creed, faith, sex, and age can undergo this unique training.
Conclusion
Because of the above, I am confident that you have learned about muscle dysmorphia, symptoms, causes, risk factors, diagnosis, treatment, home remedies, Ayurveda treatment, Yoga, treatments, and Siddha remedies. Now, you have become self-sufficient, hence it’s the right time to use your acquired knowledge for solving problems as per the provision available in Siddha Spirituality of Swami Hardas Life System.
However, keep learning and practicing the free Siddha remedies, which would help guide how to solve various problems regarding health, peace, and progress, without money and medicines.
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Frequently asked questions
Before posting your query, kindly go through them:
| What is Muscle dysmorphia?
Muscle dysmorphia affects mostly men, particularly those involved in sports where body size or weight are competitive factors, becoming rationales to gain muscle or become leaner. The quest to seemingly fix one’s body consumes inordinate time, attention, and resources, as on exercise routines, dietary regimens, and nutritional supplementation, while the use of anabolic steroids is also common. Other body-dysmorphic preoccupations that are not muscle-dysmorphic are usually present as well. |
| What is the assessment process for MD?
This survey includes 13 questions that can be scored from “never” to “always.” Some items that appear are: I wish my arms were stronger, I cancel social activities with friends because of my workout/exercise schedule, I feel depressed when I miss one or more days of exercise, I feel embarrassed when people see me without a shirt. |
| Which are the best Siddha remedies for Muscle dysmorphia?
In general, a daily routine may look like this: Consume Sattvic diet; Perform breathing exercises regularly; Consider walking, swimming, or another form of physical activity you enjoy; Perform Ashtanga Yoga or Hatha Yoga regularly; Apply free Siddha remedies a minimum 3 times a day, as explained above; Perform Swayamsiddha Agnihotra daily, either self or caretaker can perform; and in case, if someone wishes to learn advanced methods of Swami Hardas Life System, undergo unique training. However, ensure to sprinkle in some fun during the day: Don’t forget to relax and laugh in between. Laughing is a great way to boost your immune system and help you. |
Reference:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_dysmorphia
- https://www.healthline.com/health/muscle-dysmorphia#risk-factors
- https://www.mayoclinic.org/medical-professionals/psychiatry-psychology/news/family-based-therapy-highly-effective-for-most-anorexia-patients/mac-20429934
- https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-cognitive-behavior-therapy-2795747
- https://adf.org.au/talking-about-drugs/seeking-help/pharmacotherapy-young-people/what-is-pharmacotherapy/
- https://www.joyfulbelly.com/Ayurveda/symptom/Body-dysmorphia-Distorted-self-image/1628
- https://www.eatingdisorderhope.com/blog/muscle-dysmorphia-signs-symptoms-and-prevalence
- https://www.hithyoga.com/heres-how-you-can-tackle-dysmorphia-with-yoga/