The winter is upon us! Here’s a helpful tip for weathering it.

頭寒足熱

zu.kan.soku.netsu

Literally: head – cold – leg/foot – heat

Alternately: Keeping your head cool and your feet warm; a recommended palliative when you have a cold, or general advice for body-temperature regulation in the winter.

Notes: Cooling the head, by itself, is a metaphor for remaining calm in Japanese just as in English. This yojijukugo as a whole doesn’t seem to have any such metaphorical use, though. That said, it’s not bad advice overall: a certain amount of exposure to cool air encourages the body to develop or retain “brown fat,” which has been shown to play a role in regulating metabolism. At the same hand, a single experience is enough to impress on you that it’s near-impossible to sleep when your feet are cold.

Totally cribbed from this now-defunct Russian Japanese-study blog. I have no idea where they got it. A Japanese blog, perhaps.