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 · DOUBLE INHALE, LONG EXHALE

Every claim cited · Every technique peer-reviewed

Physiological Sigh

Name: Loam
Availability: InStock
Author: Loam

Also called cyclic sighing. If you only learn one breathing technique, learn this one. A 2023 Stanford RCT found it's the single most effective breathwork pattern for improving mood in under five minutes — more effective than mindfulness meditation of the same duration.

Updated April 2026·4 min read

The pattern

Inhale slowly through your nose until your lungs feel comfortably full.
Without exhaling, take a second small "top-up" inhale through your nose to maximally inflate the lungs.
Exhale slowly and completely through your mouth. The exhale should feel noticeably longer than both inhales combined.
Repeat for five minutes.

That's it. The double inhale is the distinguishing feature — it's the same pattern that happens involuntarily when a child finishes crying, or when you sigh after a long day.

Where it comes from

Cyclic sighing became famous in 2023 when a randomized controlled trial from Andrew Huberman's lab at Stanford — Balban et al., Cell Reports Medicine — compared several breathwork protocols and mindfulness meditation head-to-head. Participants did five minutes of their assigned practice daily for a month. Cyclic sighing produced the largest improvement in self-reported positive affect and the biggest reduction in respiratory rate at rest.

The technique itself is much older — physiological sighing is a natural reflex, and therapists have been teaching intentional sighing for decades. What the Stanford paper did was formalize the dose and the protocol.

Why double inhales are the key

Your alveoli — the tiny air sacs in your lungs — collapse over time, especially when you're stressed and taking shallow breaths. Collapsed alveoli reduce the efficiency of gas exchange, which leaves more CO₂ in your blood than your brain is comfortable with. Rising CO₂ is one of the fastest triggers for the anxiety alarm system.

The second, smaller inhale of a sigh re-inflates collapsed alveoli. In a single sigh, you restore lung volume and reset your gas exchange. Then the long exhale dumps the accumulated CO₂ and activates the vagus nerve. One cycle does two things at once — which is probably why it beat every other breathing pattern in the Stanford study.

When to use it

Any time you notice you're stressed. This is the default recommendation. It's fast, it works, there's no wrong context.
Between meetings to reset without needing to leave your desk.
During an anxious or emotional wave — it's gentler than box breathing and doesn't require counting, which is useful when you're too dysregulated to do math.
After an argument or hard conversation to bring your heart rate back down before you continue your day.
As a daily morning practice — five minutes of cyclic sighing is enough to shift baseline mood, based on the Stanford protocol.

When not to use it

Cyclic sighing is one of the safest breathing techniques. There are no breath holds and no hyperventilation. It is not contraindicated for most people. The only real caution: if you have a respiratory condition, talk to your doctor before adopting it as a daily practice.

What the research says

The headline study is Balban et al., “Brief structured respiration practices enhance mood and reduce physiological arousal,” Cell Reports Medicine, January 2023. The study compared five minutes of daily cyclic sighing, box breathing, cyclic hyperventilation with retention, and mindfulness meditation over 28 days. Cyclic sighing produced the greatest daily improvements in mood and the greatest reductions in resting respiratory rate.

Try it in the Loam app

Loam's cyclic sighing exercise uses a breathing circle that expands in two distinct pulses for the double inhale, then contracts slowly for the long exhale. Haptic cues mark each phase. Download Loam to try it.

Related techniques

See the full breathing library, or compare against 4-7-8 Relaxation for sleep onset, box breathing for focus, or coherent breathing for long-term HRV training.

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