IMO ‘woo’ and ‘ashram’ is exactly the wrong way to go about mediation, for westerners. I'm automatically revolted by most kinds of spiritual stuff, but people I respect kept saying meditation helps to control the brain's attempts to wind itself up with drama. So finally I found the app ‘Headspace’ where a guy mumbles into my ear, with zero spiritual load and no cheesy music. What it does for me is I relax muscles including those I don't even feel otherwise, and which are all constantly tense due to bad posture. Only then, the mind calms down―tenseness and anxiety are normally in a feedback loop, and I have to break it. Can't relax as deep and fast without the mumble―takes three times as long and still not the same.
Also I don't think that in the teens you feel your bodily and mental states as acutely, at least I didn't until almost thirty―because in youth you're more active and feel alright most of the time. Took me several years of paying attention to my body and mood (before taking up meditation), to learn to recognize when I'm getting worked up for no reason. So yeah, in this sense it's probably not for everyone.
I forget what they're called, but the Headspace things where someone talks about a sleepy village or laundromat they're wandering through are incredible. They create this strong sense of nostalgia and comfiness for some long lost childhood memories I don't think actually exist.
Ooh, I should look into that, as an aficionado of induced senses and cozy mental states (without drugs or voodoo).
Apparently they also have ‘sleep music’ and soundscapes with names that sound rather newagey and are probably of the sort that never attracted me. Now, oldschool dub music, of the 70s' kind—that worked wonderfully both at home and for subway dozing. Dub is so completely non-aggressive and non-busy that I don't get such warm feeling from anything else. I remember lying in bed and suddenly wondering why my thoughts follow a weird rhythm—turned out it was the bass in a track that got mixed in the fading awareness.
All 30 minutes of attempted meditation per day does for me is dramatically increases my desire to punch someone. If that counts as an adaptation then sure.
I can recommend you to start with 5 minutes (set a timer), increase to 10. After some practice you can omit the timer, but it really helps you getting started.
Source: Dad was massively into all that woo, spent my whole teens trying, even spent a week at an ashram in India. No, meditation is not for everyone.