Additional Resources Mentioned
Takeaways
We shared 3 tips:
Tip 1: WOOP it up
Tip 2: Hone in on your wish
Tip 3: Make it work!
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Full Episode Transcript
Nancy Treaster How many times have you been told that taking care of yourself is really important and you feel overwhelmed just thinking about it? Well, in today’s episode, Sue and I are talking with Donna Fettis, gerontologist and founder of Borrow My Glasses about an evidence-based process called WOOP. Yes, you heard me right, WOOP, W-O-O-P.
WOOP helps caregivers hone in on their wishes and quickly formulate a plan to see them through. We’re sharing three tips.
Sue Donna comes to us today as having been a gerontologist now for 35 years. She’s been a dementia educator for nearly 20 years, and she founded Borrow My Glasses in 2013. She brings a tremendous breadth and depth of experience. So Donna, would you take a few moments and describe your background further, and also what caused you to create WOOP for dementia caregivers?
Donna Fedus Thank you so much for having me on to talk about a WOOP for dementia caregivers. I was very lucky to find my passion for work with older adults in my early 20s. So I’ve been at this for a long time. And for me, it’s my life’s work. It’s not just a job. I think one of the critical pieces of my background is I’m all about bringing new perspectives to issues of aging and caregiving and dementia without the tragedy narrative. And that is something that I’ve just done throughout my whole career. And a WOOP for dementia caregivers is actually a really interesting initiative that I’m very excited to bring to your listeners today. It all started when I was teaching a workshop and a caregiver attended who I just love and trust. He is one of the most resilient people who I know. He is a man who cares for his wife with Alzheimer’s.
And he was telling me about this interesting study he was a part of at Yale University. And he was learning a technique called a WOOP. I was like, WOOP, what’s that? Fun name, right? And he told me about the technique and how it was going for him and how after that study, kind of backburnered it. You know, he wasn’t WOOPing every day anymore. But about nine months later, he had a day with his wife.
And it was sort of a hard day around something that was happening with her care. And he was with what was going on. And he found that WOOP was really the thing that calmed him down and helped him to kind of get back in there and take care of what needed to be taken care of. The same thing happened again to him about a year and a half later. So once I heard about this technique, I thought, this is a powerful technique and I really need to know more about it.
I then saw that an article had been published about the study that he was involved in when I actually wrote to the PI, the principal investigator, who is Joan Monon at Yale University. She’s a friend and colleague of mine. Just wanted to congratulate her to get her study out there and say that I had met one of her subjects in her study and thought it was such a great technique. And if she ever wanted an educator to help bring it out into the world, I would be very happy to work with her on it. And that is what led to us going together to get a nationally funded study to bring this idea along.
Nancy Treaster And bring it along to dementia family caregivers specifically.
Donna Fedus Correct. WOOP is a technique that’s been around for a long time. WOOP itself, the process, was created by Dr. Gabriel Ahnjin more than 20 years ago at many, many places. It’s been used in more than 100 countries, in multiple languages, across a wide range of domains. And wishes of all kinds can be fulfilled with WOOP.
Joan’s study did was focus WOOP on dementia caregivers, and what our study did is to focus on disseminating WOOP in a scalable way through technology to dementia caregivers. And really, it is very feasible to do it this way. So we’ve been gratified in bringing WOOP into the world of dementia caregiving.
Nancy Treaster And if nothing else, it sounds like fun, right? Why would anything called WOOP must be something good? So let’s move to tip one, which is to WOOP it up. Tell us about that. Teach us how to do that.
Donna Fedus Yeah, you know, in the interest of time, what I’m happy to do if it works for you is to just walk through the four steps of WOOP if that works. I won’t take as much time as we normally do when I’m teaching WOOP in a WOOP group. It does take maybe 10 to 15 minutes, those first times to teach someone WOOP. I will say that once people practice WOOP enough to make it a habit, they can go through those steps very, very quickly if they’re sitting in a waiting room or you know, as they’re drifting off to sleep when they wake up, whatever time of day they want to go through a WOOP. But if I can do it in an abbreviated way now with your listeners, I’d be very happy to do that. Does that work?
Nancy Treaster That works great because we’re not in a WOOP group.
Donna Fedus Okay, so you would do if you want to WOOP along with us at home is kind of just settle and know that a few minutes are for you. They are for you to focus on wishes that you have that meet three criteria. The wish needs to be important to you or dear to your heart. The wish should be a little bit challenging or you wouldn’t need this process.
And importantly, that wish needs to be something that you can fulfill yourself. So important. Normally when we WOOP, we set a timeframe for the WOOP. It helps people to focus in on the wishes that they have for that timeframe. So I would encourage you to think of maybe the next day or the next 24 hours. When you’re doing a WOOP on your own, you can say for the next week or the next month or whatever it might be.
But for now, let’s think about the next 24 hours. And I would ask people to think about a wish that’s important, a little challenging, and something you can fulfill yourself. And when you have it, you can write it down on a piece of paper if you’re doing a written WOOP, or you can just hold it in the front of your mind if you’re doing a mental WOOP. And we would move on then to step two, which is the outcome.
And now I encourage you to imagine the outcome. What that would be like or feel like if you were to fulfill your wish.
And if we were WOOPing in a WOOP group, would give you maybe half a minute to think about that, 45 seconds for you to think about that best outcome that you would experience if you were to fulfill your wish. Once you have it, again, write it down in a few words on your paper for a written WOOP or hold it in the front of your mind for a mental WOOP. And that would bring us to our first imagination step.
And for this part, you don’t need to write anything down so you can put your pencil to the side. And I would normally invite people to close their eyes if they want to or stare off into space and imagine as vividly as possible that outcome coming true. You have fulfilled your wish. What is that outcome or the best feeling that you would experience? And we let people take maybe another few seconds to imagine the outcome.
That brings us to the second O in WOOP, which stands for obstacle. So now the question is, what stops you from tackling your wish and experiencing that outcome? What is it within you, your main inner obstacle that’s getting in your way of fulfilling your wish and experiencing that outcome? You’re just looking for your one main inner obstacle. And we give people some time to focus on that. I normally will invite people to dig a little bit deeper. It may be that first obstacle that you come to, but if you dig a little bit deeper, sometimes there’s something else in there that comes forward and that’s really the obstacle that’s getting in your way. Again, I invite people to summarize it in a few words on their paper if they’re doing a written work or hold it in the front of their mind if they’re doing a mental womb. And it brings us to our second imagination step. And this is where, again, you don’t need to write anything down. can vividly as possible imagine that obstacle coming up. Where does it occur? When does it occur? Is anyone else around when that obstacle is occurring for you? And you imagine the obstacle coming up in your life.
And that brings us then to the last step, which is the P for plan. And so now the question is, what is one thing you can do, one thought you can think to overcome that obstacle, fulfill your wish and experience that outcome. So your plan is just one effective thought you can think or one effective action you can take.
When people have it, again, write it down on your paper or hold it in the front of your mind. And the way you end your WOOP is to put the whole thing into an if-then statement. So you can write or say, if, fill in your obstacle, then I will, and fill in your plan. So if obstacle, then I will plan.
And we encourage people to say it together, you know, in their sentence a couple of times to kind of get it into their mind. And that is it. That’s the whole process of WOOP. There are more nuances and kind of subtlety to it, but that’s the entire process.
Sue Thank you so much for this. The foundation of this being a really powerful WOOP for us sounds like it’s the wish. So tip two is hone in on your wish.
Donna Fedus Yeah, tip two is to hone in on your wish. And honestly, and the caregivers that I have worked with, that can be a tough question for them. I mean, I don’t know about the two of you and your caregiving experience, but many people say, nobody asks me what I wish for too often. Caregivers are so often putting their own needs onto the back burner. So it can be hard for people to think about a wish. Coming up with a timeframe is actually one that helps people to get a little more specific about their wish. And honestly, practicing this technique where you are asked in step one, what is your wish, can actually really help you to build that muscle or strengthen that part of yourself. So I’ve been very lucky to be a part of all the four group groups in our NIA-funded study that we did to test the feasibility of disseminating WOOP to dementia caregivers and I’ve run many WOOP groups since the study ended. And so I get to hear what all of the wishes are. A lot of people wish for something that has to do with emotions. Know, having more patience is really a common wish. So I want to have more patience when my person repeats themselves or I feel frustrated or irritable and I don’t like that feeling or I then say the unkind word and then I feel guilty and you know, the whole gamut of emotions that dementia caregivers and really all caregivers end up feeling. It is a great way to work those kinds of wishes through. It’s a pretty flexible process and technique for lots of kinds of wishes.
Sue And you had a very good example of that, Donna, with a mom.
Donna Fedus I do. So, so many examples. One that comes to mind is about having more patience. That was something that this caregiver wished for. She was a caregiver that lived with her mom who had Alzheimer’s. Her outcome was if she stayed calmer, her mom would stay calmer also and they would have a more harmonious household. Her obstacle at first, she said was frustration. She just gets frustrated with her mom when her mom pulls her focus off whatever it is that she’s doing with these repeated comments. And interestingly, when she was invited to dig a little bit deeper under that first obstacle of frustration that she came up with, she actually recognized resentment.
Know what? I’m happy to do things for my mom. I live with my mom. I’m her primary caregiver. But honestly, there are times when I just feel resentful of all those interruptions of things I need to get done. And that’s OK, right? That’s her main inner obstacle. And so her plan, once she recognized it was resentment, her plan addressed that. And she said, if I feel resentful, then I will stop, breathe, take note of what I was doing, and then pivot my attention to mom and give her my full presence. Because I know she’s not doing this on purpose and I don’t want to feel resentful. But if I kind of make a little space for what I need first, I can then pivot and be there fully for my mom. And she was really happy with that WOOP and she reported back to our group that it worked beautifully for her.
Nancy Treaster You know, that is so important too, I think, to realize that sometimes it’s deeper than the first emotion you think you’re feeling. So, you I understand that. And interesting that you came back to a little bit of what she needed to do for her first before she got to how she could get beyond the resentment. And so I’ll bet that there are a lot of self-care wishes.
Things like, well, we hear a lot just generally, people who want to spend more time alone, they just need some alone time. I mean, you’re with your person all the time and you need some time just for you, which in a lot of ways is the definition of self care. So you can do stuff that’s important to you, like, you know, read your book or watch a TV show that you wanted to watch or work out or, you know, something that’s just for you. So spending some time thinking about what that wish might be. Remember the, remind us a little bit Donna of how those, what the surrounding objectives are of the wish so that I can remember that. But you know, bake cookies, cook something. Something that I know I can do for myself, or I know I can have control over myself within a certain timeframe. Remind me what those were again.
Donna Fedus Yeah, that’s a really common wish as well, right? To make some time for yourself. It comes to mind as a person that was just feeling very overwhelmed with caregiving responsibilities. She was also someone who worked full time and, you know, fitting everything in was just kind of getting to her at that point. And her wish was around spending some time on her own that week. Her outcome was she would feel refilled and refreshed and be able to kind of get back in there and work and help everyone, her caregiver, you know, responsibilities and the rest of her family. Her obstacle was really her to-do list was so long at work and it was shortening of those responsibilities. So that was her main inner obstacle. What am I going to do about that long to-do list? Her plan became if I can’t get everything done, then I will talk to my boss about how to prioritize my to-do list. And that was her woop.
So very interestingly, she pulled that thread right through from, want to spend time on my own. That’s my wish. But how can I do that in a responsible way and make sure that I have my list covered? That’s what will free me up to fulfill my wish and experience that outcome of being refilled and refreshed. So in her case, that was it. But people could start with that very same wish. I want to get time on my own this week.
And their WOOP might look very different. Maybe it’s about finding respite care or even having a conversation with someone else about helping or whatever it might be. So your wish is your own, all of it, your whole WOOP is your own every single step.
Sue Well, and that makes a lot of sense because I know that one of the things that would have been very helpful for me, and as you’re talking about this, I’m thinking of WOOPs that I could have done. There were so many times when I would start something, and I hear this from so many other caregivers, we get started and we have the best intentions, but we don’t have a chance to get them done. And a great WOOP would be, how do we get something done? I know there were certain projects that I had, I just could not get them across the finish line.
And there were times when I really wanted to be able to invest in conversations with people who could be supportive resources for me and for my care receiver. And another time there were times when I really wanted to have a conversation with someone, whether it was a challenging conversation about something going on or that I just hadn’t had the capacity to actually have something more than a surface conversation. It would be great to be able to have a WOOP so that those things can be done.
Donna Fedus Yeah, you can use WOOP for that for sure. And caregivers in our groups had similar wishes. It’s interesting to see the similarities that can really go across, right? So for instance, a story comes to mind where a person had a project that she wanted to do in her home that was on her list for a long time, but she was concerned about leaving her husband with dementia on his own and what might happen to him. And by going through her WOOP, she ended up kind of, I’ll shortcut us right to the last step there. But if I want to finish this project, then I will incorporate my husband in it in some way. And it doesn’t sound like rocket science to just have me share it like that, but for her, it was a real moment because she was thinking, if I’m doing this project, I need to be doing it on my own. And then what would happen to my husband? So that recognition of how could she get past her obstacle of being worried about him being alone is to incorporate him right into the project. And then she was able to accomplish both. And she was so kind of excited to have that aha moment. Another caregiver needed to have a conversation that she had been avoiding with someone in the memory care community where her husband was living now and how was she going to advocate for him? And her wish was really to figure that out, right? How could I advocate for my husband by having this conversation? And she worked it through to figure out how she would do that in a way that allowed her to get it done. And within that week, she was able to have that conversation after just WOOPing about it for a couple of minutes. So it’s a very practical technique for anything from emotions to something else on your to-do list, you know, to bringing other people in to learning more. It can be used for many different kinds of wishes.
Nancy Treaster And I think you mentioned earlier, it does sound like there are obstacles to actually ensuring that we’re creating a wish and how do we actually make it work. And so that is tip three. Let’s talk more about making it work, ensuring in the end we get what we want.
Donna Fedus Yeah, so important. So, WOOP is, you know, it’s a simple sounding technique and in a way it is very simple, right? You walk through these four steps. There is quite a bit of nuance in it. So, Gabrielle Otengin, who developed WOOP more than 20 years ago, and you know, many researchers, many researchers have developed it over these decades for all kinds of domains.
There’s a lot of nuance in there and there’s a lot of subtlety, even though it seems on the surface quite simple. In fact, if people want to look up anything more about it, you should know that the scientific name for WOOP and how you can look up studies are MCDI, mental contrasting with implementation intentions.
Sue So thank you very much for creating the very easy to say WOOP.
Donna Fedus Agreed. I have to thank Gabrielle for that. You can look it up under WOOP 2. A lot of the studies say that. But really, there’s a lot of pieces in there that make it work. And one of those pieces is about focusing where you have control. So you notice when I was asking you to think about your wish right up front, I said that wish needs to be dear to your heart. It needs to be challenging. And importantly, it needs to be something you can fulfill yourself.
We might all wish our person didn’t have dementia, right? That would be a reasonable wish, but that can’t be your WOOP wish because it’s not within your control. So right away, we’re filtering down to what is within your control. Similarly, when we get to that obstacle, it’s about your main inner obstacle, something within you. And then your plan is something to address that, just one simple thing.
So there’s a lot of, the technique itself, I guess, helps you in many ways to focus where you have control, even as it’s simplifying things. So that’s one way to make it work. There’s actually other things as well. I feel like WOOP is a very flexible process. So it’s something that you can use at any stage, even before your person may be diagnosed.
Sue Donna, thank you so very much for what you’ve brought to us with WOOP. Do you have any other comments you’d like to share with our listeners?
Donna Fedus I really just want to thank both of you for having me here and giving me the opportunity to highlight what I think is a really wonderful technique for caregivers to embrace and to be aware of. We’re always looking for new ways to support dementia caregivers, so thank you for that. I think I would just sort of wrap up by distinguishing a couple of things, because hearing these for the first time, it’s like, what is she actually saying again? So WOOP itself is a four-step evidence-based technique that’s been around for decades. It was created by Dr. Gabrielle Autenjian. WOOP for Dementia Caregivers is the program that came out of an NIA-funded study that Borrow My Glasses did with Yale University and other experts. And it’s how can we disseminate WOOP to dementia caregivers in a tailored and scalable way. So WOOP for Dementia Caregivers is our program.
And WOOP groups are the things that people can join if they want to learn WOOP. So WOOP for Dementia can be comprised of a WOOP group that you would join at just three sessions, one hour a week for three weeks in a row to learn WOOP. And you would get access to a password protected website with resources. So just distinguishing those things are what I would like to do.
Sue Donna, please share with us how listeners can find you.
Donna Fedus Thank you. Our website, is borrowmyglasses.com, has a little bit more information about our study, which is hosted by the National Institute on Aging, NIA, and you can get more information about how to join a work group. So borrowmyglasses.com.
Sue Thank you so much.
Nancy Treaster And that sounds very straightforward. Borrowmyglasses.com, I like it.
Well, let’s summarize. Thank you, Donna, from me as well for spending time today explaining to us how to WOOP, because that sounds like fun. We ought to be doing it just because it sounds fun. We shared three tips.
Sue Tip number one is WOOP it up.
Nancy Treaster Tip number two, here’s how you hone in on your wish.
Sue Then tip number three is make it work.
Nancy Treaster Absolutely. If you have tips based on what you’ve learned today about how to create a successful WOOP, please share those on our Facebook page or our Instagram page. The links are in the podcast description. For every podcast, there’s a matching blog, which is simply the written version of the podcast. So you can read about it. Find the podcast number for this podcast.
Go to the blogs page on our website and you will see a blog with the exact same number. And that’s how you find it.
Sue We can all use help being intentional about making changes. We want to make sure we’re going to stick. And WOOP is a great process to help us with this. I encourage you to give it a try. In other words, to WOOP it up.
We’re all on this journey together.
Nancy Treaster Yes, we are.
