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A sense of nervous excitement. Apparent is the chilled vapour emanating from my rivals as they perform the "starting line" wiggle on the beginning point.

A rapid twitch of the hips.

I'm at my local weekly parkrun event and I mean business. Three, two, one...

Oh, hang on. I need to sort my tracker. The same goes for the guy alongside me.

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

During the scramble, it's hard to find a wrist without a fitness tracker on it. And it's not just us athletes who wear them.

It's a explosive, massive market. Companies like Apple Watch dominate, all offering an wide array of various devices to cater to a range of needs. Based on how feature-packed the watch you go for, price tags can vary between a hundred pounds to a significant investment.

"I find it infuriating, I'm unable to switch off."

"It provides solace… It's like a companion supporting me."

"Stop telling me I've experienced a poor sleep."

A small sample of the reactions I've had from like-minded device users when I ask what they feel about theirs.

The Data Dilemma

My thoughts on mine? At this moment, annoying. It's telling me I'm off pace, leading me to doubt whether the overhead branches I'm running below are blocking my GPS connection.

A vast number of us strap these little monitors onto our wrists and keep them on constantly, ostensibly at ease with the fact they're constantly recording us.

A distant memory are the days when we used them exclusively to give us an estimation of our pedometer reading. Now, they can analyse our sleep quality, stress levels, oxygen saturation, our body battery.

It's a challenge to find a physical metric they fail to monitor.

But are they able to do what they advertise? And are the numbers we analyse a true reflection of the truth? Do they enhance our daily wellness, or do the multitude of metrics and motivational messages just increase our everyday anxiety?

A Love-Hate Relationship

"I become a quite preoccupied with mine," one user reveals.

While she loves how her device records her exercise, she finds some of its other features "daunting" at times - a feeling that became apparent during a significant period.

Before she realised she could change its configuration, her smartwatch repeatedly informed her she was failing to be energetic enough. Now, the watch keeps telling her she's had a poor sleep score.

"I have a infant, it's unnecessary for me to be notified my sleep was poor," she says. "I'm acutely aware only too well."

Couldn't she just take it off?

"It's possible, perhaps, but I have this love-hate relationship with it," she explains. "I value it for its fitness insights, I just wonder whether all the other things it can now do is perhaps excessive for me."

The Technology Behind the Tracking

Different brands of smartwatch has its own proprietary way of tracking your health metrics and processing your data, but the most use sensors on the underside of the watch.

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

A Fine Balance

A data scientist says that in general for smartwatches, it's a "fine balance" - while the continuously improving tech could realistically aid early diagnosis, "spotting abnormalities before we notice anything", it could also turn us watch wearers into the "concerned but fine".

He points out that some of the latest wearables can carry out tests like medical-grade monitoring, which continuously monitor how healthy the heart is. They can alert if someone is experiencing atrial fibrillation (AF), where there is abnormal electrical activity in the heart causing an arrhythmia.

This does not automatically signal someone is on the verge of a heart attack, but it can give an advance notice they might be more at risk of a heart problem in the years to come.

But how to understand these numbers is complex. The expert concerns that as further capabilities are incorporated, people may struggle to fully comprehend their data.

"I'm not entirely convinced that the ability to monitor so much data is such a beneficial thing," he says.

A professor studying cardiology echoes this sentiment. Research into the impact of wearable tech on a cohort of individuals with health issues suggested a minority of those who were given devices to monitor their condition experienced heightened worry and were "far more likely to use medical services".

She identified a vicious circle with her patients - they saw a worrying figure on their watch. They grew concerned. Their heart rate increased. They got increasingly anxious. They re-examined the data, and their anxiety went up again.

"Upon viewing data about ourselves that we don't really understand then, of course, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We check, we re-check - it becomes a feedback loop."