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 · BELLY → RIBS → CHEST

Every claim cited · Every technique peer-reviewed

Three-Part Breath (Dirga)

Name: Loam
Availability: InStock
Author: Loam

Three-part breath (Dirga) directs the inhale sequentially into the belly, then the lower ribs, then the upper chest. It is the foundational technique for learning diaphragmatic breathing and fixes the single most common breathwork mistake: shallow chest-only breathing.

Updated April 2026·5 min read

How to do it

Lie down. Lie on your back. Place one hand on your belly, one on your upper chest.
Belly first. Inhale slowly, directing the first third of the breath into the belly. Feel your belly hand rise first.
Then ribs. Continue inhaling, expanding the lower ribs out to the sides.
Then chest. Complete the inhale by letting the chest rise — the smallest movement of the three.
Exhale in reverse. Exhale chest, ribs, belly. Empty fully. Repeat for 10 rounds.

Why most people get this wrong on their own

Chronic stress pushes breathing into the upper chest — shallow, fast, and sympathetic-dominant. Three-part breath retrains the diaphragm by making each third of the inhale explicit. Most people discover their belly barely moves when they first try it. That is the diagnostic — and it is fixable in one session.

Once three-part breath feels natural, it disappears into every other technique in the library. You will never need to think about it again because your default breath will have shifted.

What the research says

The evidence base for Three-Part Breath (Dirga) rests on:

Zaccaro et al., 2018 (Frontiers in Human Neuroscience)

When to use it

Week 1, before any asymmetric pattern
Any time you notice chest tightness

Try it in the Loam app

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

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