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.

FOR · ADHD

Every claim cited · Every technique peer-reviewed

Meditation for adhd, without the common mistakes.

Name: Loam
Availability: InStock
Author: Loam

Most meditation advice is written for neurotypical attention. ADHD needs the opposite: short, guided, body-first, varied. Open-monitoring practices often work better than single-point focus. Reframing 'I got distracted' as practice — not failure — is the whole game.

Updated April 2026·6 min read

By Loam EditorialUpdated April 2026

If you have ADHD and meditation advice has ever made you feel worse about yourself, you're not alone. Most of it is written for neurotypical attention systems. This page isn't.

Why standard meditation advice often hurts ADHD practice

Traditional meditation instruction assumes a baseline — that you can sustain focus on one thing (a breath, a mantra) for 10+ minutes before the mind wanders. Clinical ADHD doesn't start there. For many ADHD folks, attention wanders 20+ times per minute during single-point focus practice, which gets framed as 'bad at meditation' instead of 'meditating with ADHD.'

The reframe that changes everything: every time you notice you've wandered, *that* is the practice. The noticing is the rep. If you notice 40 times in 5 minutes, you did 40 reps — not zero.

Open-monitoring beats focused-attention for many ADHD brains

Meditation research distinguishes two broad styles: focused-attention (single object — breath, mantra) and open-monitoring (noticing whatever arises without picking a single anchor). For ADHD nervous systems, open-monitoring is often the easier starting point — it removes the pressure of picking one thing to return to, and uses the natural drift instead of fighting it.

Body scans, sensory noting, and 'noting' practice (labeling 'thinking,' 'hearing,' 'feeling' as things arise) work with ADHD attention instead of against it. Loam's noting-practice sessions are specifically designed for this style.

Short, varied, body-first

Three principles for ADHD-friendly practice: (1) short — 3 to 10 minutes, not 20 to 45. (2) varied — rotate techniques so novelty maintains engagement. (3) body-first — start with a concrete sensation (breath, feet on floor, sound) before any cognitive reframe. The body gives ADHD attention something to grip.

Walking meditation, breath counting with physical movement, and short sessions layered with soundscape (brown noise is a community favorite) all work with ADHD rather than against it.

What to try in Loam

Brown noise — The ADHD-community favorite focus layer. Honest about the evidence.
Short breathing techniques — The 3–5 minute breath practices are the ones that work for ADHD attention.
Daisy voice — Conversational, approachable, non-soft — avoids the 'performed calm' many ADHD listeners find off-putting.

An important note

Meditation is a complementary practice, not a replacement for ADHD treatment. If medication, coaching, or therapy are part of your plan, keep them. Meditation can add a useful layer — it doesn't replace the rest.

Try it in the Loam app

Loam's session selector reads what you type into The Moment and picks the research-backed practice for adhd. No premium gate on the foundational practices. Download Loam.

Related guides

Browse all guided practices by intent, or try: Burnout, Grief, Overwhelm, Beginners.

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