diff --git a/crates/lb/Cargo.toml b/crates/lb/Cargo.toml
index e51a74c..25da4a5 100644
--- a/crates/lb/Cargo.toml
+++ b/crates/lb/Cargo.toml
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ homepage.workspace = true
 repository.workspace = true
 
 [features]
-task = []
+task = ["tokio/time"]
 fs = ["tokio/fs"]
 net = ["tokio/net"]
 
diff --git a/crates/lb/src/task.lua b/crates/lb/src/task.lua
index 9969a72..bca5aef 100644
--- a/crates/lb/src/task.lua
+++ b/crates/lb/src/task.lua
@@ -1,6 +1,10 @@
+-- include task functions in the global scope
 local task = require("lb:task")
 
--- include `lb_tasklib::spawn` in the global scope
+function sleep(ms)
+  return task:sleep(ms)
+end
+
 function spawn(f, ...)
   return task:spawn(f, ...)
 end
diff --git a/crates/lb/src/task.rs b/crates/lb/src/task.rs
index ea7919b..1aec2b4 100644
--- a/crates/lb/src/task.rs
+++ b/crates/lb/src/task.rs
@@ -14,7 +14,11 @@ impl lb_tasklib {
         Self
     }
 
-    pub extern "Lua" fn spawn(self, f: function, ...) {
+    pub async extern "Lua-C" fn sleep(&self, ms: f64) {
+        sleep(Duration::from_secs_f64(ms / 1000.)).await;
+    }
+
+    pub extern "Lua" fn spawn(&self, f: function, ...) {
         // pack the function and its arguments into a table and pass its ref to rust
         self.__spawn(__ref(__tpack(f, variadic!())))
     }