org.hibernate.exception.JDBCConnectionException: Communications link failure

I have RDS MYSQL DB and using hibernate and c3p0 to connect. I am getting the below java stacktrace: org.hibernate.exception.JDBCConnectionException: The last packet successfully received from the server was 255,335,959 milliseconds ago. The last packet sent successfully to the server was 255,335,963 milliseconds ago. is longer than the server configured value of 'wait_timeout'. You should consider either expiring and/or testing connection validity before use in your application, increasing the server configured values for client timeouts, or using the Connector/J connection property 'autoReconnect=true' to avoid this problem. at org.hibernate.exception.internal.SQLStateConversionDelegate.convert(SQLStateConversionDelegate.java:131) at org.hibernate.exception.internal.StandardSQLExceptionConverter.convert(StandardSQLExceptionConverter.java:49) at org.hibernate.engine.jdbc.spi.SqlExceptionHelper.convert(SqlExceptionHelper.java:125) at org.hibernate.engine.jdbc.spi.SqlExceptionHelper.convert(SqlExceptionHelper.java:110) at org.hibernate.engine.jdbc.internal.proxy.AbstractStatementProxyHandler.continueInvocation(AbstractStatementProxyHandler.java:129) at org.hibernate.engine.jdbc.internal.proxy.AbstractProxyHandler.invoke(AbstractProxyHandler.java:81) at com.sun.proxy.$Proxy121.executeQuery(Unknown Source) at org.hibernate.loader.Loader.getResultSet(Loader.java:1953) at org.hibernate.loader.Loader.doQuery(Loader.java:829) at org.hibernate.loader.Loader.doQueryAndInitializeNonLazyCollections(Loader.java:289) at org.hibernate.loader.Loader.doList(Loader.java:2438) at org.hibernate.loader.Loader.doList(Loader.java:2424) at org.hibernate.loader.Loader.listIgnoreQueryCache(Loader.java:2254) at org.hibernate.loader.Loader.list(Loader.java:2249) at org.hibernate.loader.hql.QueryLoader.list(QueryLoader.java:470) at org.hibernate.hql.internal.ast.QueryTranslatorImpl.list(QueryTranslatorImpl.java:355) at org.hibernate.engine.query.spi.HQLQueryPlan.performList(HQLQueryPlan.java:195) at org.hibernate.internal.SessionImpl.list(SessionImpl.java:1248) at org.hibernate.internal.QueryImpl.list(QueryImpl.java:101)

Somehow the connection is getting lost. Is there somehow I can increase the wait_timeout or any other configuration on RDS MYSQL DB side? How do I track what is happening and what would be the possible reason/solution be? Please pour in any inputs which you have!