If you are using your breathing as object of attention, you will experience similar problems of not getting involuntary breathing.
Your breath works fine your entire life, except when you are not well or hyperventilating.
It obviously speeds up when you need additional oxygen for the muscles of your limbs, during jogging as you have started and slows down when you relax. Day in, day out, year after year.
However, the moment you concentrate on it, you start to create tension. Thus, there is something inside you that suddenly wants to try to control the breath, and at the same time, you are aware of the instructions that tell you not to control it, and these both factors simultaneously cause stress. Remember: your breath works fine when you not pay attention. It’s only when you pay attention that the tension starts. This is an indication that your attention is at least part of the problem.
Try to breathe as pleasant as possible Why are you not trying to breathe as pleasant as possible instead of disturbing yourself in this way. For some people following the breath comes natural, others use control in the pleasant direction to allow the mind to settle down.
Whenever you struggle, control the breath into a pleasant experience, try to add some additional pleasure and then relax in that pleasant state. If the mind settles down in this pleasure it will release it’s grip on the breath and it will observe more and more as “outsider’ and act less as a controlling entity naturally. Then automatically, your breath will become involuntary as you become detached observer. I think new regimen of jogging should not cause any problem with your meditation on breathing. If your meditation follows the jogging exercise, it will obviously take some time to settle to calm down the mind and the breathe which will become naturally natural.
