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There's a feeling of anticipation. I can see the chilled vapour emanating from my fellow runners as they execute the "pre-race" shuffle on the starting line.

A swift movement of the hips.

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

Hold on. I have to adjust my device. So does the guy beside me.

The person behind us expresses impatience. I refuse to go until… done! Signal acquired, and I'm running.

During the scramble, it's difficult to spot a wrist without a smartwatch on it. And this isn't only us participants who wear them.

It's a explosive, multi-billion dollar industry. Companies like Garmin lead the market, each with an wide selection of various versions to cater to a range of budgets. According to how feature-packed the device you choose, costs can range from £100 to a significant investment.

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

"It comforts me… It's like a friend encouraging me."

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

A handful of the responses I've received from like-minded smartwatch wearers when I inquire what they their opinion is on theirs.

A Sea of Statistics

My current opinion on my own device? Right now, irritating. It's reporting I'm not hitting my target, making me wonder whether the foliage I'm passing under are disrupting my GPS connection.

Countless individuals of us strap these compact gadgets onto our arms and use them constantly, ostensibly unconcerned with the fact they're continuously monitoring us.

Long past are the days when we relied on them solely to give us an rough count of our pedometer reading. Today, they can track our sleep patterns, stress levels, glucose levels, our recovery score.

It's difficult to find a bodily function they aren't designed to measure.

But are they able to do what they claim to do? And are the statistics we scrutinise a true reflection of reality? Do they improve our daily wellness, or do the multitude of readings and cheerleading alerts just contribute to our everyday anxiety?

A Love-Hate Relationship

"I become a bit fixated with mine," an individual admits.

While she values how her device records her workouts, she finds some of its other capabilities "excessive" at times - a feeling that became apparent during a major life event.

Prior to discovering she could put it into a specific mode, her smartwatch constantly alerted her she was failing to be productive enough. Now, the watch insists her she's had a bad night's sleep.

"I've got a infant, there's no point to be told I've not slept," she says. "I'm acutely aware perfectly well."

Why doesn't she just remove it?

"I could, theoretically, but I have this complicated dynamic with it," she continues. "I appreciate it for its fitness insights, but I'm unsure whether the additional features it can now do is perhaps too much for me."

How Do They Work?

Different brands of smartwatch has its own novel way of tracking your health metrics and processing your data, but the vast bulk use sensors on the back of the watch.

They typically shine small, green LED lights onto your arm which can detect pulsation, recording your pulse rate. More advanced devices measure changes in the skin conductance that flows through the skin to get an idea of your stress levels.

A Fine Balance

A professor says that for most people for smartwatches, it's a "difficult line" - while the ever-evolving tech could potentially save lives, "spotting abnormalities before we feel unwell", it could also turn us watch wearers into the "anxious healthy".

He points out that some of the latest wearables can conduct tests like electrocardiograms (ECGs), which regularly monitor how healthy the heart is. They can notify if someone is experiencing a heart arrhythmia, where there is erratic signals in the heart causing an irregular heartbeat.

This does not mean someone is imminently going to suffer a cardiac event, but it can give an early warning they might be more susceptible of a blood clot in the future.

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

"I'm not entirely convinced that being able to monitor so many things is such a positive development," he says.

A health researcher specialising in wearable tech agrees. Research into the impact of wearable tech on a set of heart condition patients suggested a noticeable percentage of those who were given devices to monitor their heart health experienced greater stress and were "far more likely to use doctor's time".

She observed a cycle with her patients - they saw a concerning reading on their watch. They became worried. Their heart rate increased. They got more worried. They checked again, and their reading rose further.

"Upon viewing data about ourselves that we lack context for then, understandably, we are going to become concerned," the psychologist says. "We check, we re-check - it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."