Meditation: The more I focus on the breathe, the more mechanical it becomes

[F A B]

Background: I've been meditating 30 minutes a day for about five months now

Problem: Although some days I feel very relieved, there are still a lot of days in which I feel my breathing so mechanical and stiff. The more I tell myself "stop controlling it, let it flow" the more I feel like I need to control it and it becomes really unnatural (when it happens I experience also some mild nervous tics).

[kinesin]

@F A B  My suggestion to you is to play around with the polar extremes of your breath.  Take the deepest breath you can, hold it in and observe the sensation of doing so.  Separately, exhale as much air from your lungs as possible and observe the sensation of that too.  Breathe fast, observe the sensation, breathe slow, observe the sensation.

After you've done those, consider it the end of your practice, but then simply notice how your breathing feels once it returns to its normal rhythms.  That may help.

[RickyFitts]

I've had issues with observing the breath in the past, too, I found that I was becoming neurotic about it which just made it a really frustrating practice. I eventually found it much more helpful to think of it more in terms of allowing the body to breathe, and not attempting to control or force the breath in any way.