Is Loam meditation app free?

Yes. Loam is free to download and free to start. Core tools like breathing exercises, journaling, daily check-ins, and streak tracking are always available at no cost. Premium unlocks the full guided session library, unlimited custom Moments, and advanced features.

What makes Loam different from Calm or Headspace?

Loam composes every session around how you feel right now — the voice, the pace, and the therapeutic approach all adapt in real time. Instead of a catalog of pre-recorded tracks, Loam generates a new meditation tailored to your current emotional state, calibrated to your experience level, and grounded in peer-reviewed research. It also ships with Sage, a wellness coach trained in Motivational Interviewing, and 15 breathing exercises with haptic-synced animations.

Is Loam safe to use alongside therapy or medication?

Yes. Loam is designed with clear clinical guardrails. Sessions never claim to diagnose or treat mental illness, never tell you to stop therapy or medication, and always defer to professional care for symptoms that warrant it. Content is constrained to evidence-based techniques (ACT, self-compassion, MBSR, somatic experiencing, CBT-I) and a carefully reviewed voice and pacing library. Meditation is a complement to care, not a replacement. If you're in crisis, please contact a local crisis line or your care provider.

What research is Loam based on?

Every therapeutic technique in Loam cites primary peer-reviewed research. Loam's breathing library is grounded in work by Balban et al. (Stanford, 2023), Zaccaro et al. (2018), and Lehrer & Gevirtz (2014). The Moment's therapeutic architecture draws on polyvagal theory (Porges), ACT (Hayes), self-compassion (Neff), MBSR (Kabat-Zinn), and somatic experiencing (Levine). A full citation library is available at /research.

Who are the voices in Loam?

Loam uses 13 research-selected voices. Each voice is chosen for the emotional state it handles best, based on polyvagal theory, ASMR research, and voice psychology — low resonant voices for grounding, warm bright voices for light moods, measured voices for heavy ones. Loam automatically picks the voice the research says will work for your current state, or you can override manually.

Does Loam work offline?

Core tools work offline, including downloaded meditations, breathing exercises, and the journal. The Moment — Loam's custom meditation composer — requires an internet connection at the moment of generation, because the session is composed on the fly. Once generated, every Moment is saved to your library and can be replayed offline without using any credits.

Does Loam have sleep stories?

Yes. Loam includes narrated sleep stories, sleep soundscapes, and wind-down rituals. The sleep content uses anti-storytelling techniques — structured to prevent the mind from latching on to narrative — based on CBT-I stimulus control research (Bootzin & Epstein, 2011).

What breathing exercises does Loam offer?

Loam offers 15 breathing techniques across beginner, intermediate, and advanced tiers, including Box Breathing (4-4-4-4), 4-7-8 Relaxation, the Physiological Sigh, Coherent (Resonance) Breathing at 5.5-5.5, Alternate Nostril, Ujjayi, Kapalbhati, and the Wim Hof method. Every technique links to the peer-reviewed research that validates it, so you can read the study if you want to.

Will I lose my streak if I miss a day?

No. Loam's streak system is explicitly wellness-first: streaks pause, they don't break. You get two streak freezes, you can mark rest days, and the app never shames you for missing a session. Anxious users are especially vulnerable to streak mechanics turning self-care into another source of pressure — Loam is designed to avoid that failure mode.

BREATHING · ALTERNATE · ~6 BPM

Every claim cited · Every technique peer-reviewed

Alternate Nostril Breathing (Nadi Shodhana)

Name: Loam
Availability: InStock
Author: Loam

Alternate nostril breathing (Nadi Shodhana) is a prāṇāyāma technique where you close one nostril at a time, alternating for 5–10 minutes. Research suggests modest improvements in HRV and attention, with fewer effects on acute stress than exhale-dominant techniques.

Updated April 2026·5 min read

How to do it

Sit comfortably. Sit upright with a neutral spine. Rest your left hand on your thigh.
Close right nostril. With your right thumb, gently close your right nostril. Exhale fully through the left.
Inhale left. Inhale slowly through the left nostril for 4 seconds.
Switch and exhale right. Close the left nostril with the right ring finger. Release the thumb. Exhale through the right nostril for 6 seconds.
Inhale right, exhale left. Inhale through the right for 4 seconds, switch fingers, exhale through the left for 6 seconds. That is one full cycle.
Continue. Repeat for 5 to 10 cycles. Breath should be quiet; no forcing.

What the research actually shows

Alternate nostril breathing is one of the more-studied prāṇāyāma techniques, but the evidence base is smaller and noisier than the evidence for slow paced breathing or cyclic sighing. A 2013 trial by Telles et al. found that twelve weeks of daily practice improved autonomic measures and subjective wellbeing relative to breath-awareness controls. Effects on acute anxiety are less consistent.

The mechanism, if there is one, is debated. Traditional prāṇāyāma holds that the technique balances the ida and pingala nadis — roughly, left- and right-side nervous-system activity. The secular explanation is simpler: it slows breathing to roughly six breaths per minute (the coherent range) and adds attentional demand, which makes it harder for the mind to ruminate.

Who it suits

If you like techniques that demand a little bit of attention, alternate nostril is a good entry to daily practice. It gives the mind something to do other than spin. It is a weaker tool than cyclic sighing for acute spikes and weaker than 4-7-8 for sleep, but it is better than both for general settling before a longer meditation.

What the research says

The evidence base for Alternate Nostril Breathing (Nadi Shodhana) rests on:

When to use it

Before a longer meditation, to settle the mind
In the middle of the day, as a 5-minute reset
When regular paced breathing feels boring

When not to use it

With a congested nose — the hand work is counterproductive
During acute panic (physiological sigh or 4-7-8 are faster)

Try it in the Loam app

Alternate Nostril Breathing (Nadi Shodhana) is included in Loam's breathing library with an animated breath visualizer, optional haptic cues at every phase transition, and configurable durations. Download Loam to practice it.

Related techniques

Back to the full breathing library, or try: resonance, box-breathing, Ujjayi (Ocean Breath).

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