One thing I do point out to folks is that meditation comes in many shapes, there is no one size fits all. For some it is silent sitting Zazen style, for others it is walking mediation, or a sort of physical almost martial arts type thing. There is a thousand different style in between that. Do what works for you. If that is staring at walls, neat!

The hard part is that the training looks like nothing from the outside, so it's easy to dismiss (in a way)

Much like the gym, meditation seems to me like an artificial alternative to an actually healthy lifestyle. Perhaps it is necessary to have such explicit and focused "exercising" to really get what you need nowadays, there may be merit to that.

But why not just go for a nice walk with no headphones?

I am a pretty peaceful person, but working with agents frequently (daily) makes me furious. I wonder if the context switching you mentioned leads to more fatigue, which makes me much more irritable.