Maybe I'm trying to hard and taking a huge inhale. It certainly feels good, but I need to find out if I'm doing it right. That mantra seems to fit me though. If you are enjoying your meditation, and don't feel that you are straining, then you're doing all right. But if it does feel as though you are working too hard, then let your breathing, and the entire process, become a bit more natural.
Relaxed effort works best in meditation.
Sometimes I feel school and life in general can be very stressful, and I've always been interested in meditation as a way to relax and become happier. Relaxed effort means easily focussing on the primary object, and when your mind drifts off, gently bringing it back, no matter how many times this occurs. There isn't much recorded history on the earliest forms of meditation, but it has been around since ancient times. The roots of meditation are in simply communing with Spirit, and signs of this type of activity can be found in some form in almost all ancient cultures. More structured methods evolved in numerous cultures over thousands of years.