2026 Warrior Games: Coming Home to the Warrior Community

Eight days of connection, resilience, and Tactical Alchemy® in San Antonio

There are some places you arrive and immediately feel like you’ve come home.

That was the feeling at the 2026 Department of Defense Warrior Games in San Antonio, Texas.

Surrounded by wounded, ill, and injured service members from across the Air Force, Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and U.S. Special Operations Command, there were familiar faces, warm hugs, deep conversations, laughter, courage, and the kind of connection that is difficult to put into words.

For MilSpec Formulas, the Warrior Games have become about far more than being present at an event. They are about being part of a community we are deeply honored to serve.

Over eight days, we distributed more than 1,300 Tactical Alchemy® kits, sharing aromatherapeutic formulas and simple multisensory practices designed to support sleep, energy, mood, tension relief, regulation, and recovery.

And once again, the response reminded us why we do this work.

A New Addition to the MilSpec Team

When a Few Minutes Can Matter

One interaction from the week has stayed with me.

A warrior came into our space reporting a headache with a pain level of 7 out of 10, along with significant light sensitivity associated with a previous traumatic brain injury.

We began with our Rest & Relax formula and then incorporated At Ease with the Tactical Alchemy system—Cadence Breath, specific tactical points, and visual patterns.

Within several minutes, she reported that her pain had decreased from a 7 to a 3 and that her light sensitivity had resolved.

This was her individual experience, not a clinical study or a claim that these practices treat traumatic brain injury. But moments like this are meaningful because they point toward an important area for continued exploration: how portable, multisensory practices may support state regulation, comfort, and recovery within military communities.

And hers was only one of many stories we heard throughout the week.

Stories of relief.

Stories of release.

Stories of warriors discovering that they could have simple tools available to them in the moments when they needed them most.

For the second year, I also taught Make Your Own Medicine, a hands-on program I originally created specifically for the Warrior Games.

Warriors came. Spouses came. Children came.

Together, they learned about aromatic ingredients, explored what different formulas felt like to them, and created personalized blends to take home.

Two encounters during these workshops opened an especially interesting conversation.

On separate occasions, two members of the warrior community approached me with essentially the same question:

“Adora, I can’t smell. Will this still work for me?”

It is an important question.

Our sense of smell is only one part of the experience of aromatic compounds, and loss or impairment of smell can have many causes. Rather than promise an outcome, I invited each person to simply explore the experience and notice whether anything shifted for them.

One participant created a relaxation formula intended to support moments when he was feeling anxious. The following day, he returned and told me that although he could not consciously smell the aroma, he experienced a noticeable feeling of downshifting and relaxation after using it.

A second participant who could not perceive the aroma similarly reported experiencing a sense of relaxation.

These are individual experiences, not evidence that aromatherapy will produce the same response in every person with impaired or absent smell. But they raise fascinating questions about sensory processing, aromatic exposure, learned cues, and the ways multisensory practices may be experienced beyond conscious odor perception.

They are questions worth exploring.

Training the Transition

At MilSpec Formulas, our work is built around a simple principle:

Train the Transition.

Military life requires the nervous system to move between very different states—activation and recovery, vigilance and rest, intensity and connection.

The goal of Tactical Alchemy® is not to eliminate those states. It is to give warriors practical ways to become more intentional about moving between them.

An aromatic cue.

A breath pattern.

A tactical point.

A visual anchor.

A sound.

A few seconds of awareness.

Practiced repeatedly, these become tools that can travel with you.

Leaving San Antonio, I felt deeply grateful—not simply for what we were able to share, but for what the warrior community continues to teach us.

And this year, the work continues in an even deeper way.

Through the 2026–2027 training year, I will be working with the Air Force Wounded Warrior Program community through its resilience programming, bringing Tactical Alchemy® practices into continued work with Airmen and their caregivers as we move toward the next Invictus Games and Warrior Games.

It is an extraordinary honor.

To every warrior and family member who stopped by, made a formula, practiced a breath with us, shared a story, gave us a hug, or simply allowed us to be part of your journey:

Thank you.

We see your strength. We honor your service. And we look forward to continuing to walk beside this remarkable community.

— Adora Winquist
Creator, Tactical Alchemy® | Co-Founder, MilSpec Formulas

Participant experiences described here are individual reports and are not intended to represent medical outcomes or to suggest that MilSpec Formulas products diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or medical condition.