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A sense of feeling of anticipation. Apparent is the chilled vapour coming from my fellow runners as they do the "pre-race" wiggle on the start line.

A rapid twitch of the hips.

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

Wait a second. I must start my tracker. So does the guy beside me.

The person waiting sighs. I won't start until… yes! Signal acquired, I'm off.

During the scramble, it's challenging to find a arm without a wearable on it. And it's not just us runners who wear them.

We're witnessing a thriving, massive industry. Names like Samsung Galaxy lead the market, all offering an extensive array of various versions to cater to a spectrum of needs. According to how high tech the watch you go for, costs can start from an affordable sum to a significant investment.

"It makes me crazy, I'm unable to relax."

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

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

Just some of the responses I've had from fellow smartwatch wearers when I inquire what they their opinion is on theirs.

The Monitoring Conundrum

My feelings on my own device? At this moment, frustrating. It's indicating I'm off pace, making me wonder whether the foliage I'm running below are disrupting my GPS connection.

Countless individuals of us attach these small devices onto our wrists and keep them on 24/7, ostensibly comfortable with the fact they're continuously recording us.

Long past are the days when we used them solely to give us an rough count of our step count. Now, they can track our sleep patterns, heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), our VO2 max.

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

But do they do what they advertise? And are the numbers we analyse a accurate representation of reality? Do they boost our daily wellness, or do the plethora of metrics and motivational messages just add to our sense of overwhelm?

A Love-Hate Relationship

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

While she values how her device tracks her workouts, she finds some of its other features "excessive" at times - a feeling initially realised during a pregnancy.

Before she realised she could put it into a specific mode, her smartwatch repeatedly informed her she was not being energetic enough. In a new phase, the watch keeps telling her she's had a poor sleep score.

"I have a six-month old, there's no point to be told I've not slept," she says. "That fact is only too well."

Why doesn't she just remove it?

"I suppose I could, I suppose, but I've got this love-hate relationship 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."

The Technology Behind the Tracking

Every device of smartwatch has its own novel way of monitoring your bodily functions and interpreting your data, but the majority use sensors on the back of the watch.

They commonly shine small, green LED lights onto your arm which can observe blood flow, detecting your BPM. Sophisticated devices detect changes in the electrical current that passes over the skin to gauge your stress levels.

Expert Perspectives

A professor says that for most people for smartwatches, it's a "difficult line" - while the ever-evolving tech could realistically save lives, "detecting disease before we show symptoms", it could also turn us device users into the "worried well".

He points out that newer wearables can perform tests like heart rhythm analysis, which continuously monitor how healthy the heart is. They can notify if someone is experiencing atrial fibrillation (AF), where there is abnormal impulses in the heart causing an arrhythmia.

This does not necessarily indicate someone is on the verge of a heart attack, but it can give an preliminary indication they might be more at risk of a blood clot in the long term.

But how to understand these readings is complex. The expert concerns that as more functions are incorporated, people may find it hard to fully comprehend their data.

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

A clinical psychologist studying wearable tech echoes this sentiment. A study into the influence of wearable tech on a set of individuals with health issues suggested a noticeable percentage of those who were given devices to monitor their heart health experienced heightened worry and were "more inclined to use medical services".

She observed a pattern with her patients - they spotted a alarming metric on their watch. They became worried. Their heart rate went up. They got more worried. They checked again, and their heart rate rose further.

"If we see numbers about ourselves that we don't really understand then, of course, we are going to become concerned," the psychologist says. "We monitor, we check again - it becomes a vicious cycle."