Think of it like this: doing push-ups is counter-intuitive, right? But what you do is build muscle memory by repeating an action over and over again. In the case of push-ups or weight-training, your body responds to commands to increase muscle memory by adapting resources to meet the increased need: it builds muscle.

What I am finding is almost similar to a breath push-up. Now that I have started doing it this way, I can feel the breaths literally cleansing my body. The muscles is gaining greater strength and more complete control.

One of the benchmarks that I am using to determine for myself that this is “right” is that it seems to naturally improve my posture when I breathe using this method. And I find the method your describing has the muscular effect of contracting my midregion and straining slightly muscles in my upper back to pull me out of best posture.

My observations anyway. Not absolute truths, but based on direct observation and experimentation with my own body and its mechanisms.

The “nerves” are caused by keeping the air high up in your chest. You keep the diaphram up high and don’t push it it all the way down to fill up your lungs. The kind of breathing that relaxes you is belly breathing. Your belly rises and falls instead of your chest.

I am sure that is what you have been doing.

Don’t focus on breathing: focus on raising and lowering the elevator. Breaths are an after-effect of that mechanism being properly used.

…but I would still like to hear from an expert on this. All I can tell you is what I have read and what I have experienced firsthand. You should be able to discover what is most effective for yourself through experimentation: which is, after all, how countless generations and cultures have always discovered it.

Am I doing this right?

Practice also riding the “elevator” (diaphragm) up and down slowly the “whole building” of your body from toes to top of head.