Long polling in Laravel (sleep() function make app

I'm trying to program long polling functionality in Laravel, but when I use the sleep() function, the whole application freezes/blocks until the sleep() function is done. Does anyone know how to solve this problem?

My javascript looks like this:

function startRefresh() {

longpending = $.ajax({
    type: 'POST',
    url: '/getNewWords',
    data: { wordid: ""+$('.lastWordId').attr('class').split(' ')[1]+"" },
    async: true,
    cache: false
}).done(function(data) {
    $("#words").prepend(data);
    startRefresh();
});

}

And the PHP:

public function longPolling()
{
    $time = time();
    $wordid = Input::get('wordid');
    session_write_close();
    //set_time_limit(0);

    while((time() - $time) < 15) {
        $words = Word::take(100)->where('id', '>', $wordid)
        ->orderBy('created_at', 'desc')->get();

        if (!$words->isEmpty()) {

            $theView = View::make('words.index', ['words' => $words])->render();

            if (is_object($words[0])) {
                $theView .= '<script>
                $(".lastWordId").removeClass($(".lastWordId").attr("class")
                .split(" ")[1]).addClass("'.$words[0]->id.'");
                </script>';
            }

            return $theView;

        } else {
            sleep(2);
        }
    }
}

I'm using: PHP 5.5 and Apache 2.2.22

The problem doesn't seem to occur outside Laravel (in none Laravel projects).

Thanks in advance.

Actually it is not long polling if you use bonez code. Long polling is if the connection stays opened (maybe with a timeout) until the server sends a response. If the client sends every 2 seconds a request and gets a response, it is just polling and you get the server response 2 seconds late in the worst case. With long polling you don't have this delay.

The freezing problem is no error with Laravel. The session blocks. So use session_write_close(); before calling the long polling method or use the cookie session driver. For more information please see http://konrness.com/php5/how-to-prevent-blocking-php-requests/