How to stay mindful of the gap in the breath When I breathe there's a certain time gap after the out breath and before the in breath. I find myself being dull or distracted at that time because there's no breath to notice. 

Do I notice the lack of breath? Do I notice not noticing?
What I watch are the feelings of irritation or tension or rushing in my mind, generated in the very beginning and the very end of the gap.

My goal in meditation is to notice how I subconsciously create/maintain emotional tension or inner discord through subconscious grasping some idea, and to stop doing that.

When I see that around start and end of the gap my mind has a character of nervousness, then I know I have something to let go. Once I let go, my breathing winding down to the gap and then restarting again from the gap, feels peaceful and more natural.

So, what I really focus on is letting go and relaxing, until I basically feel perfectly good in the here and now. And the breathing around the gap serves as an indicator of the remaining tension.

As I relax, I keep watching more and more closely, in order to notice even smaller and subtler tensions and nervousnesses. It's like zooming in, more and more, on the precise moments the breath stops and restarts.

Then at some point when I really relax, I don't really care about watching the breath anymore, I watch something else (mind?) -- I don't know how to describe.