NodeJS sleep with promise takes too long

I'm trying to improve performance of processing my worker's incoming messages using a queue.

However, the sleep function takes anywhere between 16 to 30 milliseconds to complete instead of the 1 millisecond. Is there a better way to process the queue without this large delay, and without keeping my app at 100% cpu?

I am doing something like this:

var actions = new Queue();
parentPort.on('message', (msg) => actions.enqueue(msg));

loopy();

async function loopy() {
    while (true) {
        if (actions.size() > 0) {
            let action = actions.dequeue();
            //do work
            continue; 
        }

        await sleep(1);
    }
}

function sleep(ms) {
    return new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(resolve, ms));
}

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

while(true) is (usually) not a good idea. You should call the dequeue function after you enqueue a message. The dequeue function should end when 1. there is already a dequeue function running 2. no more message in the queue.

var isProcessing = false;
var actions = new Queue();
parentPort.on('message', (msg) => {
  actions.enqueue(msg)
  tryDequeue();
});


async function tryDequeue() {
    if(isProcessing || actions.size() == 0)
    {
      return;
    }
    isProcessing = true;

    let action = actions.dequeue();
    //do work
    
    isProcessing = false;
    tryDequeue();
}