I need to have a task repeated periodically in a thread .  for now I'm
using inside the run method :

               long pausetime = 2000;
               long p = System.currentTimeMillis();
        long q;
        while(true){
            if (p < (q = System.currentTimeMillis() - pausetime)) {
                p = q + pausetime;

                // modify this object's variables
            }

        }
        // do something

I think this approach is bad because the looped if statement requires
too much work as I increase the number of threads.

I can't use sleep() of Timer object because I'm not calling from
outside the thread. Or if it's possible to use them inside the run
method, I don't know how to do it.  

Please help.