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.
Meditation is different because it requires sitting still and doing nothing for a period of time. I have probably gone months without doing this to any degree. I don't sleep without listening to something. I can rarely sit down and just watch TV. Etc.
I am fairly sure the issue isn't medical: I can code, drive, and read for hours at a time without losing focus. But meditation is still torture (as is having to sit down and watch TV). I have tried several times, I have done it every day for up to two or three weeks (willpower is not really an issue) but every time, after a while, I ended up feeling more trepidation and anxiety about doing it.
In addition though, I think there are good reasons to prefer exercise in certain cases (YMMV, and this is just my experience):
Stressing your cardiovascular system mimics the physical effect of a panic attack. And part of the reason that panic attacks occur is because something is wrong with the link between the physical and mental parts of the system. You can't solve it with looking at one side alone but it is useful to experience the physical sensation of panic without the mental side (hopefully, it can set things off). I don't meditation is as effective on the physical side, it may be effective on the mental side but not for me.
This is not going to be relevant for 95% of people. But it has been my experience of it. I also think it is pretty unwise to say it should work for everyone. If you get the impression that should work for everyone, and then you try and it doesn't work...you feel terrible (if you have a disorder, it is worse...you might feel shame). Unf, in my experience, this is fairly common within psychology too which has endless "universal"-sounding solutions with weak effect. It just isn't that simple. Try stuff. See what works.
Again, hopefully this will help someone. The number of times that I have tried meditation should suggest that I was convinced, past the point of logic, that I was the issue...not meditation...unsurprisingly, that belief elicited little progress. It makes more sense to just do what works.
I am not saying meditation works for everyone. However, I would suggest that if you decide to give meditation another shot, try to approach it differently. You say that "it requires sitting still and doing nothing for a period of time" - I don't understand it that way, at least if we talk about mindfulness meditation. I am no expert but I would say the point is non-judgemental observation of what occurs in your mind. If what occurs in your mind is anxiety or restlessness, try to observe it without trying to control it or escape it and see what happens. You might be surprised. If you do not approach it with some preconceptions of what it "should" do and just try to accept what comes, it might make you feel better - it seems like a paradox but human psyche sometime works in surprising ways. BTW, that is also why methods like paradoxical intention (Viktor Frankl) work - when you feel anxiety attack coming, you don't try to calm yourself down. You try to be even more anxious... and surprisingly, anxiety subsides.
With all due respect your exact same line of reasoning would work for exercising.
Why would it be unwise to think it works for everyone? Does doing sit-ups make everyone’s core stronger? Does doing squats make everyone’s legs stronger?
I have no idea what you were doing when you were meditating, but having anxiety about it is certainly not proof that it doesn’t work.
Maybe you didn’t have good guidance? Maybe you were having some benefit you didn’t notice or measure?
Preferring exercise over meditation doesn’t really make any sense? Exercise and meditation do not serve the same purpose. It would be best to do both with a good plan, it’s essentially impossible to do zero of either of them.
If someone told me exercise didn’t work for them, I’d simply say the same as I would to you, you must be doing it wrong (for your situation), or it is working, and it’s not at a fast enough pace for your liking.
What I would guess is going on would be loosely similar to someone who starts to exercise and does it with bad form and not enough conditioning for the exercises they try. So they get hurt or too sore and just think it won’t work.
The scientific research supporting exercise is vastly stronger than the scientific research supporting meditation. The proven benefits of exercise are in order of magnitude different than the benefits of meditation.
That’s like saying exercise doesn’t work for you.
Maybe you are going too hard too fast and getting injured or any number of things that make it difficult.
But meditation works, even if it’s (like exercise) a difficult habit to pick up.