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A sense of nervous excitement. Visible is the frosty air emanating from my rivals as they perform the "starting line" shuffle on the beginning point.

A quick flick of the hips.

I'm at my local weekly parkrun event and I'm serious. It's almost time...

Wait a second. I need to start my watch. So does the runner next to me.

The person behind us sighs. I won't start until… done! Signal acquired, away I go.

Amidst the crowd, it's hard to spot a arm without a wearable on it. And it's not just us athletes who wear them.

We're witnessing a booming, massive sector. Names like Samsung Galaxy lead the market, all offering an wide array of different versions to suit a spectrum of lifestyles. Based on how high tech the device you go for, price tags can range from £100 to thousands of pounds.

"I find it infuriating, I'm unable to relax."

"It comforts me… It feels like a companion supporting me."

"I wish it wouldn't say I've had a restless night."

Just some of the responses people have shared from like-minded device users when I inquire what they feel about theirs.

A Sea of Statistics

My feelings on mine? At this moment, annoying. It's telling me I'm off pace, leading me to doubt whether the trees along my route are blocking my satellite signal.

Countless individuals of us strap these compact monitors onto our wrists and wear them all day and night, ostensibly at ease with the fact they're continuously tracking us.

A distant memory are the days when we used them only to give us an idea of our daily steps. Currently, they can track our sleep quality, heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), our VO2 max.

It's difficult to find a physical metric they aren't designed to measure.

But can they do what they claim to do? And are the statistics we analyse a faithful picture of our actual health? Do they boost our daily wellness, or do the plethora of measurements and constant notifications just contribute to our sense of overwhelm?

Addiction or Aid?

"I become a bit obsessed with mine," a wearer reveals.

While she values how her device tracks her exercise, she finds some of its other features "excessive" at times - a feeling that became apparent during a major life event.

Prior to discovering she could put it into a specific mode, her smartwatch repeatedly informed her she was failing to be productive enough. Now, the watch insists her she's had a poor sleep score.

"I've got a six-month old, I don't need to be notified my sleep was poor," she says. "I know that all too clearly."

Why doesn't she just stop wearing it?

"I suppose I could, I suppose, but I've got this push-pull dynamic with it," she continues. "I love it for its exercise data, I just wonder whether the additional features it can now do is maybe excessive for me."

How Do They Work?

Every device of smartwatch has its own unique way of measuring your vitals and analysing your data, but the most use detectors on the reverse of the watch.

They typically shine small, green LED lights onto your wrist which can monitor capillary action, identifying your BPM. Higher-end devices measure changes in the bioimpedance that runs through the skin to get an idea of your nervous system activity.

Expert Perspectives

A data scientist says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "fine balance" - while the rapidly advancing tech could potentially aid early diagnosis, "detecting disease before we notice anything", it could also turn us watch wearers into the "anxious healthy".

He points out that newer wearables can perform tests like electrocardiograms (ECGs), which regularly monitor how stable the heart is. They can flag if someone is experiencing a heart arrhythmia, where there is erratic electrical activity in the heart causing an arrhythmia.

This does not automatically signal someone is imminently going to suffer a heart attack, but it can give an preliminary indication they might be more vulnerable of a heart problem in the long term.

But how to interpret these figures is not straightforward. The expert worries that as more functions are incorporated, people may not be able to fully comprehend their data.

"I remain sceptical that the ability to monitor so much data is such a good idea," he says.

A clinical psychologist specialising in wearable tech echoes this sentiment. A study into the impact of wearable tech on a specific group of cardiovascular patients suggested a minority of those who were given devices to monitor their cardiac function experienced greater stress and were "more inclined to use medical services".

She noted a vicious circle with her patients - they noticed a worrying figure on their watch. They became worried. Their heart rate went up. They got even more concerned. They looked a second time, and their heart rate rose further.

"Upon viewing numbers about ourselves that we don't really understand then, naturally, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We monitor, we check again - it becomes a vicious cycle."