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 · SLOW BELLY-FIRST INHALE · SLOW EXHALE

Every claim cited · Every technique peer-reviewed

Diaphragmatic Breathing (Belly Breathing)

Name: Loam
Availability: InStock
Author: Loam

Diaphragmatic breathing — slow, belly-led inhales with the shoulders relaxed — is the single technique with the deepest clinical literature. It is the foundation of HRV biofeedback, cardiac rehab, and many anxiety interventions. Five to ten minutes a day moves baseline HRV within weeks.

Updated April 2026·5 min read

How to do it

Get comfortable. Sit or lie down with shoulders relaxed.
Hand on belly. Place one hand on your belly, one on your chest. The belly hand should do most of the moving.
Inhale through the nose. Inhale slowly for 4 seconds. The belly expands; the chest barely moves.
Exhale through pursed lips. Exhale slowly for 6 seconds through pursed lips, as if cooling soup. The belly falls.
Continue for 10 minutes. Ten minutes daily, for 6 to 8 weeks, is the dose supported by the clinical literature.

Why clinicians love this one

Diaphragmatic breathing is the technique clinicians reach for first because it is the most boring and the most studied. HRV biofeedback research by Lehrer and Gevirtz documents effects on anxiety, depression, asthma, IBS, and cardiovascular measures at 5 to 6 breaths per minute with diaphragmatic form. It is not glamorous. It works.

If you do one thing from this library every day for the rest of the year, make it this. Every other technique is a refinement of this.

What the research says

The evidence base for Diaphragmatic Breathing (Belly Breathing) rests on:

When to use it

Daily, as a foundation practice
After strenuous exercise, to down-regulate
As the default breath during any other meditation

Try it in the Loam app

Diaphragmatic Breathing (Belly Breathing) 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: Three-Part Breath (Dirga), resonance, Sama Vritti (Equal Breath).

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