Disable Sleep Mode to improve Ping responce?

Hi,
Most devices on my WAN have a RTT of sub 1ms. However my esphome (ESP8266 & ESP32) devices are reporting values between 50ms and 500ms!
Scanning the web, gives many references that this behaviour “may” be due to the ESPs dipping in & out of sleep mode?
Is it possible, in the esphome yaml, to positively disable any/all sleep modes?
If so, what are the implications of disabling sleep? Power saving is not an issue.

Regards, Martin