When any understanding arises or even when you cultivate any wholesome mind such as awareness, metta, Buddhanusati, or your breath, it reduces the power of the defilement – any craving or aversion.
Even if you don’t understand, if you just grow the wholesome minds, when the wholesome mind becomes stronger than the unwholesome mind, you will not feel depressed. Depression is just when the unwholesome mind is stronger than the wholesome mind.
When you try to practice, when you try to be aware, you’re actually cultivating the wholesome minds – sila, samadhi, pañna; and once they become stronger, the depression will go down.
When there is awareness, you’ll know that something unwholesome is going on in the mind, you have the information, then you’ll stop the mind from continuing to grow the unwholesome thoughts and concentrate on being aware; you grow the awareness rather than the unwholesome thoughts.