I'm a political scientist rather than a neuroscientist, like Dr. Rachel Barr, but her suggestions for how to deal psychologically (neurologically) with “non-stop global horror” are also incredibly important from a political perspective, too.

I've been following Mahmoud and Noor Abu Daqqa and their growing family for years, helping out in whatever ways I can, whenever I can. I've watched their youngest son, Yaman, grow up under literal fire from one of the most belligerent and unaccountable regimes of our age. I've watched one of his daughters survive the trauma of being shot in the head and another the trauma of witnessing her sister shot. I've watched them welcome their newest baby into the world, with no respite, genuine ceasefire, or justice in sight.

Over the years, it has become incredibly clear that my engagement with the Abu Daqqa family is self-serving.

I, personally, benefit a lot from this engagement. The joy on little Yaman’s face every time he's allowed to hold his new baby sister brings me joy. Watching the girls slowly come back to life from their trauma heals me. Watching Mahmoud and Noor share everything they have (which is nearly nothing) with other families around them restores my faith in the inherent goodness of humanity.

Just following this family fulfils Rachel's first tip, “expand your world view”, focus on good news as well as bad. This family are good news.

Aside from this, by engaging with the Abu Daqqa family from the safety and comfort of my home, I leave a digital footprint.

My every engagement, however small, means something. It is data. I am data. You are data. What we do online matters and companies, like Tiktok but also Chuffed and Gofundme, are watching, collecting, analysing. As are politicians.

Every action we take, every payment we make, every second we scroll or linger is a value-laden data point.

So long as whatever it is that we do reflects our values, reflects our political priorities, we are contributing those values and priorities to the data politicians refer to when calculating the political cost of their policy choices, the political cost of their complicity, the political cost of their war crimes.

Which brings me to Rachel's third (not second) point: Engage in “small acts of activism”, because they absolutely do mean something, psychologically and politically.

So let's do it. Let's show them what we stand for, right now. It takes less than five minutes and costs less than a cup of coffee:

Though I overlooked Rachel's second point (process the emotion of this horror by engaging with art, by creating something, anything), I suppose content creation in some small way fulfils the brain's need to turn feelings into something tangible and visible.

So write a note, share your thoughts, turn your feelings into something other people, other humans, can relate to and bounce off of, just as Rachel did with her original video.