java Timer TimerTask multiple threads

I'm using Timer and TimerTask to long poll for new messages for a chat application. I would like to examine two "slightly" different possibilities:

1 : Timer declared as local variable

public List<MessageBean> getLastMessages(...) {
    [...]
    Timer timer = new Timer(true); //**Timer declared as local variable**
    while (someCondiction) {
        MessagesTimerTask returnMessagesTask = new MessagesTimerTask([...]);
        timer.schedule(returnMessagesTask, 6000);
        synchronized (listMessageBean) {
            listMessageBean.wait();
            //notify is called in the MessagesTimerTask which extends TimerTask
        }
    }
}

*Problem: Every time i call the method, i can see that a new thread is created, [Timer-1], [Timer-2], etc.. And in Eclipse Debug window they all seem to be running even after the getLastMessages(..) finishes running and returns a value to the client. This may cause a huge problem if the timers are actually using threads, and after few transactions the server will eventually consume all the machine resources.

2 : Timer declared as local field

private final Timer timer = new Timer(true); //**Timer declared as local field**

public List<MessageBean> getLastMessages(...) {
    [...]
    while (someCondiction) {
        MessagesTimerTask returnMessagesTask = new MessagesTimerTask([...]);
        timer.schedule(returnMessagesTask, 6000);
        synchronized (listMessageBean) {
            listMessageBean.wait();
            //notify is called in the MessagesTimerTask which extends TimerTask
        }
    }
}

*Problem: every time i call the method, the same thread is used [Thread-1], but i'm not sure if i make two consecutive calls, the latter will cancel/override the former (the class is @Autowired by spring) ?

Any suggestions ? Thank you.