Seeking guidance on avoiding meditation distractions and sluggishness
A standard beginner's practice for those who get distracted is to count your breaths. You can count them by subvocalizing, or on fingers. I counted by touching my thumb to three phalanges on each finger, and for each full hand - count one phalanges on the other hand.

Another practice to establish the mind in the beginning of the session is to 1) review all body sensations, head to toe and explicitly note every discomfort, then 2) review all breathing tensions and emotional sensations and note all of the preexisting conditions, then 3) review the state of the mind and note the quality of thinking &amp; awareness today. Once the review is complete this way, it helps to set all distractions aside.

Then again, it's not like the distractions and sluggishness is one, and meditation is some perfect state separate from those. The whole point of (Buddhist) meditation is to work with your inner condition, until you learn to manage it, and in the process get some insight. So don't treat the obstacles as something unexpected, working with obstacles is the meat and bones of meditation.