* Also See: Midlife-Crisis Management

By his own admission, Greg Abel is going through some sort of crisis, of the midlife variety. Until about a year ago, the 46-year-old from Austin, Texas, says, he was just like any other mild-mannered family man he knew, with two kids, a mortgage and a 9-to-5 job in tech management. But with a Ph.D. in microbiology, he always assumed he d eventually get back to his first love, academia until he began working longer days during the recession and had to drop his part-time teaching gig. That lifeline gone, he quickly found himself aimless and adrift, and ready to try something totally different.

It involved a parachute.

For many months now, he s been throwing himself out of a plane from more than 10,000 feet. And that s just one item on his bucket list of middle-aged must-dos. Mission 1: Get certified in skydiving. Mission 2: Take a grand tour of Europe s capitals (staying in fancy hotels only). Mission 3: Blast down some back roads (on that chromed-up Harley-Davidson (HOG) Softail Fat Boy he s been jonesing for). And did we mention the custom tattoo he s planning? All of this will set his family back a pretty penny especially since his wife, Anne, lost her job. I told him my midlife transition is going to be easier, she says.

These days, you can barely swing a cat without hitting a boomer in the throes of a midlife crisis. The symptoms are everywhere: On top of the usual hair plugs and Harleys, there are all the Facebook photos with prominently featured Stratocasters and those inescapable Viva Viagra ads. Midlife U-turns are almost always a challenge, but it doesn t take a genius to see that the risks and costs of trying to break out of a midlife malaise are especially high now. As Abel discovered, there s a decent chance now that one spouse won t be able to financially back up the other. Even if one can, the midlifer gambling on that dog-grooming business will have a tough time returning to the executive suite in this job market if it fails. Divorce courts, meanwhile, have gotten tougher on spouses who drop longtime stay-at-home spouses, while the travel industry now targets boomers for pricey midlife splurges. Indeed, with retirement so close, and portfolios so battered, blow-the-bank moves are the last thing a boomer needs, says Patti Houlihan, president of Washington, D.C. area Houlihan Financial Resource Group: It will absolutely sabotage their plan.

To be sure, Americans of all ages are feeling the pressures of the economy. But when the American Psychological Association conducted its annual stress survey last year, it was the 45- to 60-year-olds who earned the dubious distinction of being most frazzled, with nearly a third calling themselves extremely stressed. And it s no wonder: The U.S. Department of Labor reports that more than 2.7 million midlifers have been unemployed for at least half a year, more than in the worst months of the past four recessions combined. Many are burdened by rising tuition bills for their kids and increasing care demands from aging parents not to mention their own severely cracked nest eggs. According to the Pew Research Center, middle-aged Americans suffered bigger investment losses from the crash than any other group, causing many to push back retirement an average of three years. The recession, in some cases, has actually caused a midlife crisis, says Timothy Maurer, a Hunt Valley, Md. based financial planner.

So what s a boomer in a rut to do? Everyone from psychologists to financial planners says a bumpy midlife transition may be inevitable for many. But reaching a certain age doesn t mean you automatically have to scratch the Is this all there is? itch with an overpriced convertible, ill-advised investment or lipstick-on-the-collar adventure. Below, our own guidebook to the hidden costs of and solutions to the midlife blues.

I ll Start My Own Business.

Fantasizing about getting off the office treadmill to open a bistro or invent the next killer iPhone app? Going solo has always been high on the list of midlife moves, and it s all the more common in a job market like today s. According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, a quarter of new U.S. ventures in 2009 were so-called necessity entrepreneurship moves (precipitated by a layoff or other income loss), up from 13 percent in 2008. Even for those with a steady job, the longer hours, scarcer resources and dearth of raises only boosts the blue-funk factor. Hard times cause a lot of job-related soul-searching, says Tom Warschauer, a San Diego State University finance professor. People have a tendency to review where they are, he says.

Of course, there s just one problem with hanging out a shingle: According to the Kauffman Foundation, about half of all new ventures fail within five years. In almost classic fashion, Kim Cameron, a 43-year-old from Washington, D.C., decided not long ago to trade in two decades of corporate IT work to become...a rock star. To her credit, she did create a detailed business plan (three-year target: sell 10,000 CDs), and she did have experience fronting local bands. But the venture has pretty much been a big fat money pit from the booking agent who couldn t vault her band, Side FX, past the rinky-dink gigs ($5,000) to the poorly recorded demo (nearly $40,000). Add in wardrobe, touring costs and all the CD and merchandise production, and Cameron has spent over $500,000 living the dream, hawking her discs in shoe boutiques and hair salons. The more money you waste, the smarter you get, she says.

Experts say midlifers do have some tools at their disposal that their parents didn t. With the click of a mouse, they can download business plans (106 different varieties for retail shops alone from Bplans.com) or turn to peer-to-peer loan sites when traditional lenders say no. Venture capital declined during the crash, but it s still a force, with $15.4 billion of the stuff floating around last year. And while the cost of everything else keeps rising, Brian Headd, an economist with the Small Business Administration, says most businesses launch with surprisingly little capital about $5,000. Plus, he says, when some of the bigger guys pull back, small businesses can step in.

I ll Travel the World.

Ask anyone in the travel industry and they ll tell you that March 2009, the month the U.S. stock market jolted to historic lows, wasn t exactly a vacation-booking bonanza. But Irene Nathanson, fresh off a broken relationship, wasn t thinking about her retirement portfolio. With her half of a dream-home down payment burning a hole in her pocket, the 45-year-old pharmaceutical sales rep from Bradenton, Fla., decided to book a sumptuous two-week safari in Botswana. Between the luxe $1,000-a-day encampments (think butlers running rose-petal baths), a $1,000 safari wardrobe, a new camera and other incidentals, the excursion set her back nearly $17,000. I have a bit of the life is short kind of attitude, she says.

Midlifers have long been a favorite target of the travel industry, since they tend to be active and have disposable income. And the marketing din is only growing louder, as the midlife crisis is pitched as an excuse for blowing bucks on everything from wine-country weekends to sojourns in Paris. But industry watchers say that a stroll down the Champs- lys es has become increasingly old hat for restless boomers, more of whom are seeking pristine natural settings and exotic adventures. According to the Adventure Travel Trade Association, folks in their 40s and 50s now make up nearly half of those who book trips in the $52 billion adventure-tourism industry, roughly twice the share of those in their 20s and 30s.

But breaking the bank isn t a prerequisite for a midlife blowout, with plenty of exotic tours available for a few thousand bucks, from Mountain Travel Sobek s Moroccan camel trek ($3,995) to Bio Bio Expeditions 11-day Peruvian white-water-rafting adventure ($3,200). In addition to shaving costs the usual way searching the Web, cashing in air miles, booking last-minute more midlife travelers are choosing semi-independent tours. The concept there? Tour operators like Monograms or Intrepid Travel arrange the logistics of lodging and getting between major destinations, with daily excursions more loosely scheduled. To accommodate varying budgets, many tour companies now offer a range of lodging choices, from high-end hotels to more authentic home stays. Not that Nathanson has any regrets. I d do it again, she says. And spend twice as much.

Strangely enough, research says that when it comes to making smart financial decisions, the odds are actually stacked in midlifers favor. Last year a study published in Brookings Papers on Economic Activity looked at how people make money-related mistakes throughout their lives. Its conclusion? The best decisions occur in middle age peaking around 53 when experience lends financial wisdom but analytical abilities have not yet been impaired by advancing age.

But Atlanta-based financial planner Cass Chappell says controlling the urges of a client in the midlife danger zone isn t always easy. A few weeks after he worked with one client to carefully craft a retirement plan, the guy ran out, he says, and spent $400,000 on a houseboat. I asked him, What was your thought process on this? says Chappell. (The client told him he did his own calculations.) And earlier this year, Scott Gillam decided the only way to catch up from a near 50 percent loss in his retirement portfolio an all-too-common concern for this age group was to quit his job and become a full-time day trader. The 59-year-old from Bristol, Conn., estimates that he makes profits on two-thirds of his trades but says it s the finer points of investing that can trip him up. He s still smarting, for example, from the $30,000 hit he took on a Chinese Internet company, which had been looking like an $8,000 windfall just one day earlier. I m learning to pull the trigger early, he says.

Indeed, there s an old adage on Wall Street: Pigs get slaughtered. And in the stuttering economy, says David Adler, author of the behavioral-finance book Snap Judgment, many folks who had their nest egg crushed are falling prey to the classic temptation to chase returns, piling into an investment after it s already completed the bulk of its run-up. It s certainly no secret that going bullish and overweighting a portfolio in volatile sectors like technology or emerging markets risks causing some serious carnage when those highfliers take a sudden nosedive. If you get caught in a whipsaw, you re dead, says Ian Weinberg, a financial planner from Woodbury, N.Y. Experts say that incorporating some risk into a portfolio can be fine for pre-retirees, but recommend balancing the pursuit of jackrabbit gains with a smattering of slower, more bulletproof investments. That said, their other mantra is Just keep it simple.

I ll Upgrade My Look.

It s the classic midlife-crisis moment: You look in the mirror and notice the sprout of gray, the tired eyes and the softening jawline, and suddenly the ad for the cosmetic surgeon begins to have appeal. According to research firm Global Industry Analysts, the I refuse to grow old without a fight industry, which encompasses everything from face creams and hormone supplements to, yes, topical synthetic snake venom, reached $68 billion in 2009 and is projected to grow to $87.8 billion by 2012. And looking beyond lotions and potions, more midlifers are turning to the venerable nip and tuck. While experts say the economy has slowed demand for big-ticket cosmetic procedures like face-lifts, cheaper (under $1,000) ones are on the rise and not just for the ladies. According to the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery, the number of men getting wrinkle-busting filler treatments, for example, jumped fivefold between 2005 and 2009. Steven Hopping, a cosmetic surgeon in Washington, D.C., and a past president of the academy, says he sees more men coming in for eye procedures, to remove bags and make them seem less tired.

Naturally, a lot of this will always be vanity. But some midlifers may be able to say, with a straight Botoxed face, that it s a legitimate career move. A 2009 Harvard study found that 18- to 30-year-olds looking at photos of older faces made judgments about how aged a face appeared by fixating primarily on the eye region a study the cosmetic industry is already marketing heavily to older job hunters. Another recent survey found that 80 percent of plastic surgeons said patients were going under the knife to gain an edge in the workplace. They want to look younger and more competitive, says Hopping. You won t get an argument from Alan Horowitz, a 61-year-old real estate agent from Morristown, N.J. He says he recently got a couple of shots in the face because in his hard-hit business, agents can t afford to look tired under the eyes. People are shallow, says Horowitz, whose Botox treatments come on top of a $15,000 face-lift a few years ago. I m a great advocate of this, he says. You only live once.