I find that many people are turned off from integrating meditation in their daily lives because they are confused about what meditation is. They see meditation as having to do with things like gurus, spiritual attitudes, right versus wrong ways of living. There seems to be this idea that to be a meditator you almost have to be a religious like person firm in your beliefs. But this is not the case at all. Many great meditation teachers have been just, if not more, troubled as you and I.
Meditation in its most fundamental form has zero to do with any belief system. If a person wants to take it in that direction, nothing wrong with that. But meditation is fundamentally about relaxing the mind. Taking a certain amount of time each day to rest the mind by paying attention to what is actually happening in the PRESENT MOMENT rather than being all tangled up in JUDGMENTS or thoughts about the FUTURE and PAST. Meditation is a practice of just letting things go and becoming silent, for a little while.
It is my belief that most psychological issues that we deal with are the result of a tired mind. In the same way that if you were to over use any muscle it would begin to give you discomfort and pain, the brain is the same way. If we over use our brains with too much thinking and doing, how can we expect to not suffer psychologically as the years go by? It is not logical to think that one can remain mentally healthy and constantly refuse to rest their brain.
So, this is all meditation really is. No need for gurus and spiritual or religious belief systems, if one chooses not to engage in that way. Meditation can be just a practice of resting the brain in the present moment. Letting the brain just be. And unlike religious or even spiritual systems, when a person regularly engages in this type of meditation, they need no proof as to its positive benefit.