From NASA Flight Surgeon to Time Freedom Architect: Reclaiming Energy, Presence, and Purpose

Ann Tsung, MD, MPH SEPT 2025

High performers look free from the outside. They build successful careers, scale businesses, and master systems. But many quietly admit that even with all their leverage and resources, life still feels like a prison. They are efficient but exhausted. Productive but never truly present.

Dr. Ann Tsung has lived that paradox.

As a NASA Flight Surgeon triple-boarded in Emergency Medicine, Critical Care, and Aerospace Medicine, Ann mastered efficiency under pressure. She provided medical support in the ER and ICU and in spaceflight operations. She served on mission support and launch for Expedition 70 and contributed to NASA’s work on SANS (Spaceflight Associated Neuro-ocular Syndrome), CLDP (Commercial LEO Destination Programs), and HLS (Human Landing System) to the moon. She is also certified in Performance Neuroscience by the Flow Research Collective.

From resuscitating patients to supporting astronauts, she learned to operate in environments where every second mattered. But after becoming a mother of two toddlers and building her advisory business, Productivity MD, Ann realized something deeper: true time freedom is not about managing the clock time. It is about evolving your identity and relationship with time to get more presence time.

This realization led her to create the Five Stages of Time Freedom℠, a diagnostic and roadmap she developed from her own life as a physician, entrepreneur, investor, mother, and Time Freedom advisor. Tested in crisis medicine and refined through advising founders, physicians, and entrepreneurs, the framework maps the journey from Time Prisoner to Time Transcender. It helps leaders stop optimizing the wrong game and start reclaiming their most precious asset: their life energy.

From ER/ICU to Antarctica to NASA: A Career Built on Extremes

Ann’s path has never been ordinary. She has served in some of the most extreme frontiers of human experience, including Antarctica (McMurdo Station and the South Pole), and high-stakes ER/ICU environments.

Her career has always blended science, resilience, and exploration. She has summited Kilimanjaro, trekked to Everest Base Camp, and pushed her limits through Olympic weightlifting since 2013. These experiences taught her a truth textbooks never could: success without purpose and presence is hollow.

The Turning Point: A Sabbatical in Search of Real Freedom

After years of chasing productivity, Ann took what many dream of: a year-and-a-half sabbatical from NASA to travel the world with her 2 toddlers. On paper, she had complete time freedom.

And yet her mind was still stressed. She found herself overcommitting, saying yes too often, and filling every gap with more opportunities. What she discovered was profound: you can eliminate, automate, and delegate everything and still feel trapped. That was not true freedom. It was fake time freedom.

From that revelation, the Five Stages to Time Freedom℠ crystallized.

NASA Mission Control Work as a Flight Surgeon

Supported Expedition 70 launch and NASA SANS research

The Five Stages of Time Freedom℠

1. Time Prisoner — “I don’t have time.” Life is reactive to other peoples demands.

2. Time Manager — “I’m so busy but I’m so exhausted.” It is all done by him or herself. Lack of chronotype alignment or non-negotiables set.

3. Time Creator — “I can make the time.” Master of leverage (systems, processes, people), but overfills life with pressure to optimize time.

4. Time Liberator — “Does this multiple or drain my energy?” Ruthless filtering based on anchors (family, health, purpose). It’s a no unless it’s a hell yes. Ex. Steve Jobs and Warren Buffet.

5. Time Transcender — “All there is is this moment now.” Flow state and timeless presence is the true time freedom.

This framework helps leaders diagnose where they are, and transcend toward true freedom: not just more time, but fully lived time. They can shift in and out of different stages depending on their state.

Advisor, Keynote Speaker, Mother

Today, Ann guides leaders at the intersection of time, energy, and identity. Through Productivity MD, she helps founders, CEOs, and high-performance leaders rewire their identities and design lives to achieve true time freedom.

She’s been featured by Mindvalley, the Tony Robbins Platinum Partners community, and her work has appeared in JAMA Ophthalmology and Nature. She also hosts the Productivity MD Podcast.

As biohackers extend lifespan, Ann’s mission is to ensure that bonus time isn't wasted, it’s lived deeply, bravely, and beautifully.

Personal Life

Beyond her professional roles, Ann is a devoted mother of 2, spouse, and explorer. She lives with her husband and their two young children in Houston, TX. They invest in passive and active real estate. Their family values are compassion, playfulness, and courage.

South Pole, Antarctica

Ann has served in some of the most extreme frontiers of human experience, including Antarctica

Conclusion

Dr. Ann Tsung is a Time Freedom Architect who helps leaders move from Time Prisoner to Time Transcender to achieve true time freedom.

Her mission is simple: stop managing clock time and start living in presence time.

Because at the end of life, we do not remember the hours we logged, but we remember the beautiful, timeless moments.

To learn more about Dr. Ann Tsung, please go to www.ProductivityMD.com.

Disclaimers