I have a pretty active Mysql running multiple clients.
Here are the values I currently have:
Threads_cached: 5
Threads_connected: 1
Threads_created: 6
Threads_running: 1

It's also 1:30 am so that explain why those values are so low.

So the basic principal here appears to be:
1) decrease the timeout value
2) increase the thread cache.
Looks like:
wait_timeout=15;
thread_cache_size=40;

work well for him.

Cheers,
Chris