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A sense of feeling of anticipation. I can see the cold breath exhaled by my competitors as they do the "starting line" jiggle on the start line.

A quick movement of the hips.

I'm participating in my local weekly parkrun event and I'm focused. Three, two, one...

Hold on. I have to adjust my watch. As does the person next to me.

The person in the line sighs. I'm not moving until… there! GPS ready, and I'm running.

During the scramble, it's hard to spot a wrist without a wearable on it. And this isn't only us participants who rely on them.

It's a explosive, multi-billion dollar market. Brands like Apple Watch dominate, featuring an broad range of diverse versions to suit a spectrum of needs. According to how feature-packed the model you choose, costs can vary between a hundred pounds to a significant investment.

"It drives me insane, I can't stop checking."

"It provides solace… It acts as a friend encouraging me."

"Please don't notify me I've had a poor sleep."

Just some of the comments I've had from like-minded tracker enthusiasts when I question what they think of theirs.

The Monitoring Conundrum

My thoughts on mine? Currently, irritating. It's telling me my speed is wrong, causing me to question whether the trees I'm running below are blocking my GPS connection.

A vast number of us attach these small monitors onto our wrists and keep them on constantly, apparently at ease with the fact they're constantly tracking us.

Long past are the days when we relied on them only to give us an rough count of our pedometer reading. Now, they can measure our nightly rest, blood pressure, glucose levels, our recovery score.

It's tricky to find a bodily function they fail to monitor.

But are they able to do what they advertise? And are the numbers we obsess over a accurate representation of our actual health? Do they boost our daily wellness, or do the multitude of metrics and motivational messages just contribute to our everyday anxiety?

A Complicated Bond

"I do get a bit obsessed with mine," one user reveals.

While she appreciates how her device monitors her workouts, she finds some of its other capabilities "excessive" at times - a feeling that became apparent during a significant period.

Prior to discovering she could change its configuration, her smartwatch repeatedly informed her she was failing to be productive enough. In a new phase, the watch keeps telling her she's had a restless night.

"I am caring for a infant, there's no point to be notified I've not slept," she says. "That fact is perfectly well."

Couldn't she just take it off?

"I could, perhaps, but I have this love-hate relationship with it," she says. "I love it for its workout tracking, but I'm unsure whether all the other things it can now do is possibly too much for me."

How Do They Work?

Each model of smartwatch has its own unique way of tracking your health metrics and analysing your data, but the vast bulk use sensors on the back of the watch.

They typically project minute LED lights onto your skin which can monitor capillary action, identifying your pulse rate. Sophisticated devices measure changes in the electrical current that flows through the skin to gauge your recovery state.

The Professional Viewpoint

A data scientist says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "fine balance" - while the rapidly advancing tech could realistically save lives, "detecting disease before we show symptoms", it could also turn us the tracked into the "anxious healthy".

He points out that newer wearables can carry out tests like electrocardiograms (ECGs), which constantly monitor how normal the heart is. They can alert if someone is experiencing a heart arrhythmia, where there is erratic electrical activity in the heart causing an irregular heartbeat.

This does not necessarily indicate someone is about to have a cardiac event, but it can give an preliminary indication they might be more susceptible of a heart problem in the future.

But how to understand these readings is not straightforward. The expert concerns that as further capabilities are added, people may struggle to fully contextualise their data.

"I have some doubts that having the capacity to monitor so much data is such a good idea," he says.

A professor focusing on cardiology echoes this sentiment. Research into the influence of wearable tech on a specific group of cardiovascular patients suggested a noticeable percentage of those who were given devices to monitor their condition experienced increased anxiety and were "more inclined to use healthcare resources".

She observed a cycle with her patients - they spotted a concerning reading on their watch. They felt anxious. Their heart rate rose. They got even more concerned. They looked a second time, and their heart rate increased again.

"If we see numbers about ourselves that we can't properly interpret then, understandably, we are going to seek clarification," the psychologist says. "We look, we check again - it becomes a feedback loop."