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A sense of nervous excitement. Visible is the cold breath coming from my competitors as they do the "about to run" shuffle on the starting line.

A swift flick of the hips.

I'm participating in my local weekly parkrun event and I'm serious. The countdown begins...

Hold on. I must start my tracker. As does the person beside me.

The person behind us expresses impatience. I'm not moving until… there! GPS ready, I'm off.

In the mele, it's hard to see a wrist without a smartwatch on it. And this extends beyond us athletes who wear them.

We're witnessing a booming, multi-billion dollar industry. Companies like Garmin lead the market, each with an broad selection of different models to fit a variety of needs. Based on how high tech the device you select, prices can range from a hundred pounds to a significant investment.

"It drives me insane, I can't switch off."

"It reassures me… It acts as a supporter guiding me."

"Stop telling me about a poor sleep."

Just some of the comments I've received from other device users when I ask what they feel about theirs.

A Sea of Statistics

My feelings on my own device? Currently, irritating. It's reporting I'm not hitting my target, making me wonder whether the trees I'm running below are blocking my location tracking.

Countless individuals of us attach these little devices onto our arms and use them constantly, ostensibly comfortable with the fact they're continuously recording us.

Gone are the days when we relied on them exclusively to give us an idea of our step count. Now, they can analyse our sleep quality, blood pressure, heart rate variability (HRV), our recovery score.

It's tricky to find a physical metric they don't track.

But can they do what they say they do? And are the statistics we scrutinise a accurate representation of reality? Do they enhance our overall health, or do the multitude of measurements and constant notifications just add to our daily stresses?

A Complicated Bond

"I do get a quite obsessed with mine," an individual reveals.

While she appreciates how her device records her runs, she finds some of its other features "daunting" at times - a feeling first discovered during a significant period.

Prior to discovering she could change its configuration, her smartwatch repeatedly informed her she was failing to be energetic enough. Later on, the watch keeps telling her she's had a bad night's sleep.

"I am caring for a infant, I don't need to be told I'm tired," she says. "I know that perfectly well."

Why doesn't she just take it off?

"I could, perhaps, but I'm in this love-hate relationship with it," she continues. "I appreciate it for its workout tracking, but I'm unsure whether the additional features it can now do is maybe excessive for me."

The Technology Behind the Tracking

Every device of smartwatch has its own proprietary way of tracking your vitals and processing your data, but the majority use sensors on the underside of the watch.

They commonly shine tiny, coloured LED lights onto your arm which can observe pulsation, detecting your heartbeat. Higher-end devices detect changes in the bioimpedance that flows through the skin to assess your recovery state.

A Fine Balance

A data scientist says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "delicate equilibrium" - while the ever-evolving tech could potentially save lives, "spotting abnormalities before we notice anything", it could also turn us watch wearers into the "anxious healthy".

He points out that newer wearables can carry out tests like heart rhythm analysis, which regularly monitor how stable the heart is. They can flag if someone is experiencing a heart arrhythmia, where there is abnormal impulses in the heart causing an uneven pulse.

This does not necessarily indicate someone is imminently going to suffer a cardiac event, but it can give an advance notice they might be more vulnerable of a blood clot in the future.

But how to interpret these readings is complicated. The expert worries that as more functions are added, people may not be able to fully understand their data.

"I'm not entirely convinced that being able to monitor so much data is such a good idea," he says.

A health researcher specialising in wearable tech concurs. Her work into the impact of wearable tech on a set of individuals with health issues suggested a significant portion of those who were given devices to monitor their cardiac function experienced greater stress and were "far more likely to use medical services".

She noted a pattern with her patients - they saw a alarming metric on their watch. They grew concerned. Their pulse increased. They got even more concerned. They re-examined the data, and their anxiety went up again.

"Upon viewing data about ourselves that we can't properly interpret then, of course, we are going to seek clarification," the psychologist says. "We monitor, we re-check - it becomes a vicious cycle."