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An atmosphere of nervous excitement. I can see the chilled vapour coming from my competitors as they perform the "starting line" wiggle on the start line.

A rapid flick of the hips.

I'm lined up for my local weekly parkrun event and I'm focused. It's almost time...

Wait a second. I must start my watch. As does the guy alongside me.

The person in the line expresses impatience. I'm not moving until… done! GPS ready, I'm off.

In the mele, it's difficult to find a arm without a wearable on it. And it's not just us runners who wear them.

It's a thriving, multi-billion pound market. Companies like Apple Watch dominate, each with an extensive array of diverse models to suit a spectrum of needs. Based on how high tech the watch you select, price tags can vary between £100 to thousands of pounds.

"It drives me insane, it's impossible to stop checking."

"It provides solace… It feels like a companion encouraging me."

"Please don't notify me about a bad night's sleep."

Just some of the responses I've received from like-minded tracker enthusiasts when I inquire what they feel about theirs.

The Data Dilemma

My feelings on my own device? At this moment, frustrating. It's indicating my speed is wrong, causing me to question whether the trees I'm running below are blocking my satellite signal.

Millions of us attach these small gadgets onto our wrists and use them constantly, ostensibly at ease with the fact they're constantly tracking us.

Long past are the days when we depended on them only to give us an rough count of our step count. Now, they can track our nightly rest, heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), our body battery.

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

But can they do what they advertise? And are the statistics we analyse a faithful picture of the truth? Do they enhance our mental and physical wellbeing, or do the avalanche of readings and motivational messages just add to our everyday anxiety?

A Complicated Bond

"I do get a bit fixated with mine," an individual confesses.

While she appreciates how her device records her runs, she finds some of its other features "excessive" at times - a feeling initially realised during a major life event.

Prior to discovering she could adjust the settings, her smartwatch kept telling her she was failing to be energetic enough. Now, the watch keeps telling her she's had a poor sleep score.

"I have a six-month old, 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?

"It's possible, I suppose, but I've got this love-hate relationship with it," she explains. "I love it for its exercise data, but I'm unsure whether the myriad other functions it can now do is perhaps too much for me."

Inside the Device

Each model of smartwatch has its own novel way of measuring your bodily functions and processing your data, but the most use detectors on the reverse of the watch.

They usually emit tiny, coloured LED lights onto your wrist which can observe blood flow, identifying your heartbeat. More advanced devices detect changes in the skin conductance that passes over the skin to gauge your nervous system activity.

A Fine Balance

A professor says that for most people for smartwatches, it's a "delicate equilibrium" - while the ever-evolving tech could potentially aid early diagnosis, "detecting disease before we feel unwell", it could also turn us device users into the "worried well".

He points out that some of the latest wearables can conduct tests like heart rhythm analysis, which continuously monitor how normal the heart is. They can notify if someone is experiencing a heart arrhythmia, where there is abnormal signals in the heart causing an uneven pulse.

This does not automatically signal someone is imminently going to suffer a heart attack, but it can give an advance notice they might be more at risk of a blood clot in the years to come.

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

"I remain sceptical that having the capacity to monitor so many things is such a beneficial thing," he says.

A clinical psychologist focusing on cardiology echoes this sentiment. Research into the influence of wearable tech on a cohort of individuals with health issues suggested a significant portion of those who were given devices to monitor their condition experienced greater stress and were "had a higher tendency to use doctor's time".

She observed a cycle with her patients - they saw a alarming metric on their watch. They felt anxious. Their heart rate rose. They got increasingly anxious. They looked a second time, and their reading went up again.

"If we see stats about ourselves that we lack context for then, naturally, we are going to seek clarification," the psychologist says. "We look, we check again - it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."