diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 84ad8ddf4..5bd49b52e 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -13,6 +13,11 @@ Post-v2.15.0
      * New command line options --record/--replay for ovsdb-server and
        ovsdb-client to record and replay all the incoming transactions,
        monitors, etc.  More datails in Documentation/topics/record-replay.rst.
+     * The Python Idl class now has a cooperative_yield() method that can be
+       overridden by an application that uses eventlet / gevent / asyncio with
+       the desired yield method (e.g. {eventlet,gevent,asyncio}.sleep(0)) to
+       prevent the application from being blocked for a long time while
+       processing database updates.
    - In ovs-vsctl and vtep-ctl, the "find" command now accept new
      operators {in} and {not-in}.
    - Userspace datapath:
diff --git a/python/ovs/db/idl.py b/python/ovs/db/idl.py
index 1bf9b1e09..f24511720 100644
--- a/python/ovs/db/idl.py
+++ b/python/ovs/db/idl.py
@@ -481,6 +481,15 @@ class Idl(object):
         :type updates:  Row
         """
 
+    def cooperative_yield(self):
+        """Hook for cooperatively yielding to eventlet/gevent/asyncio/etc.
+
+        When a block of code is going to spend a lot of time cpu-bound without
+        doing any I/O, it can cause greenthread/coroutine libraries to block.
+        This call should be added to code where this can happen, but defaults
+        to doing nothing to avoid overhead where it is not needed.
+        """
+
     def __send_cond_change(self, table, cond):
         monitor_cond_change = {table.name: [{"where": cond}]}
         old_uuid = str(self.uuid)
@@ -646,6 +655,8 @@ class Idl(object):
                                       'is not an object'
                                       % (table_name, uuid_string))
 
+                self.cooperative_yield()
+
                 if version == OVSDB_UPDATE2:
                     changes = self.__process_update2(table, uuid, row_update)
                     if changes: