Meditation and yoga offer plenty of support for managing stress and in fact depression. But most people want a quick antidote, something that 'burns' the edge off and not fixes it for good.
Few seem to understand how debilitating treatment-resistant depression can be. Source: wife's cousin, who when s(he)'s ok, is super smart, capable, and lives a good life. When s(he)'s in the depression hole, s(he)'s nearly comatose. Ketamine has helped greatly in his/her case.
It's just that the ghost of my 5th grade English teacher would have emerged from the mists to point out that "they" is plural, whereas I was referring to an individual. Can't win.
Words mean what people who use them intend them to mean.
But if you want something more authoritative than random-internet-comment, definition three from dictionary.com has you covered:
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/they
they
pronoun, possessive their or theirs, objective them.
1 nominative plural of he, she, and it.
2 people in general: They say he's rich.
3 (used with a singular indefinite pronoun or singular noun antecedent in place of the definite masculine he or the definite feminine she ): Whoever is of voting age, whether they are interested in politics or not, should vote. A person may apply only if they are over 21. They have been an actor since childhood.
I tried meditation and yoga for years to treat depression, and I suffered unnecessarily for years (including periods of being suicidal). Getting on pharmaceuticals vastly improved my life and I can't imagine going back.
I'm really glad you found something that works for you, but I believe you actively harm others by suggesting that it will work for everyone else too.
It makes no sense to me to exclude agents that affect biochemistry ('drugs') from consideration as having therapeutic benefit.
They have the ability to do absolutely nothing in some folks and the ability to make mental problems worse for other folks. This is why some retreats won't take people that have a history of mental health issued.
You could simply stick with what works for you and let others do what works for them without judging them harshly for doing something you believe won't help (even when the research and their personal experience says otherwise).
I sure hope so, you obviously have no idea what you talk about. If you can postulate that meditation and offer plenty of support for depressed people. Can some depressed people be helped by meditation and yoga? Sure!
But saying that it offers plenty of support, is like saying that people with cancer just need to eat healthy.