Have a Timer that controls the delay, that way you can pause this Timer and also restart it at the times that it should be doing so. Set Timer Event/Function Name and have it do the timing for you. That is how I do the regenerative health and mana situations on my characters, they set up timers on their Begin Play that begin to work as soon as there is a change in the HP or Mana, the timer is then stopped or paused when they take damage or the statistic is full or attack or such.
I believe it to be a more effective solution than using Ticks, which I have also done in the past. Tick won’t tax your system that much, however my Tick and your Tick are two different things. Time is time.
above me explains the situation as well.