set one's hair on fire

Possibly from stories of Viking marauders said to have set their hair and beards on fire when running into battle in order to appear fanatical and fearsome.

• ""It was perceived that we were opening a party house where people could drink and run amok and generally set their hair on fire," said Bill Hobson, executive director of the Downtown Emergency Service Center."
• "[T]he problem is the extreme shortage of affordable housing. You can do as the city has decided to do, which is set up a task force to deal with affordable housing. . . . Or you can set your hair on fire and blame Chinese foreigners."
• "As the impeachment investigation proceeds, it’ll be important for us Trump critics to not set our hair on fire every day, to evaluate the evidence as if it were against a president we ourselves voted for."
• "It is difficult to sum up the speech, despite having taken notes while watching on three screens, because the whammos, the bone chips and viscera, came at us faster than they could be wiped away."

• freak out
• lose it