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.

BINAURAL PRESETS

Every claim cited · Every technique peer-reviewed

Binaural beats, honestly.

Name: Loam
Availability: InStock
Author: Loam

Binaural beats are real, and the effect is subtle. The internet oversells them; the research is modest but not zero. Here's what the evidence supports, what it doesn't, and the six presets in the Loam library.

Updated April 2026·7 min read

How binaural beats work

Play two pure tones of slightly different frequency — one in each ear — and the brain perceives a rhythmic pulse at the difference frequency. Your auditory brainstem fires in that rhythm, and some studies find modest EEG changes in nearby frequency bands.

What the evidence supports

A 2019 meta-analysis (Garcia-Argibay et al., Psychological Research) found small-to-moderate effects on cognition, anxiety, and pain — with important methodological caveats. The case for binaural beats as a light audio layer is reasonable. The case for them as a miracle cure is not.

The six presets

Loam ships with six research-grounded presets, one per major brainwave band. Each requires headphones — the binaural effect depends on stereo separation.

Deep Sleep (Delta 2 Hz) — 2 Hz — A 2 Hz delta-range beat for slow-wave sleep. (0.5–4 Hz (Delta) · deep sleep range)
Dream (Theta 4 Hz) — 4 Hz — A 4 Hz theta beat associated with REM sleep and hypnagogia. (4–8 Hz (Theta) · meditation / creative states)
Meditation (Theta 6 Hz) — 6 Hz — A 6 Hz theta beat for deep meditative states. (4–8 Hz (Theta) · meditation / creative states)
Relaxation (Alpha 10 Hz) — 10 Hz — A 10 Hz alpha beat — relaxed, alert, eyes-closed rest. (8–13 Hz (Alpha) · relaxed focus / eyes-closed rest)
Focus (Beta 16 Hz) — 16 Hz — A 16 Hz low-beta beat for active focus. (13–30 Hz (Beta) · active concentration)
Clarity (Gamma 40 Hz) — 40 Hz — A 40 Hz gamma beat — peak awareness, highest-controversy. (30–100 Hz (Gamma) · peak awareness (most controversial))

What we don't claim

Binaural beats cannot “rewire” a brain, treat ADHD, replace sleep medication, or replace meditation skill. The real research base is narrower than the internet suggests. We include binaural beats in Loam because some people find them genuinely helpful — as one optional layer among many.

Try it in the Loam app

Binaural beats can be layered under any soundscape or The Moment, with an independent volume slider. Download Loam and try one — with headphones.

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