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An atmosphere of nervous excitement. Visible is the frosty air exhaled by my rivals as they perform the "starting line" wiggle on the beginning point.

A swift twitch of the hips.

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

Wait a second. I must adjust my device. The same goes for the runner beside me.

The person in the line sighs. I won't start until… yes! GPS ready, I'm off.

In the mele, it's difficult to see a person without a wearable on it. And this isn't only us athletes who use them.

We're witnessing a thriving, multi-billion pound market. Brands like Garmin lead the market, all offering an wide selection of various devices to fit a variety of lifestyles. According to how advanced the model you select, prices can range from £100 to a significant investment.

"It makes me crazy, it's impossible to stop checking."

"It comforts me… It acts as a supporter encouraging me."

"I wish it wouldn't say about a restless night."

A handful of the responses people have shared from other device users when I ask what they feel about theirs.

The Monitoring Conundrum

My feelings on mine? At this moment, annoying. It's reporting I'm not hitting my target, causing me to question whether the foliage I'm running below are interfering with my GPS connection.

Countless individuals of us fasten these little monitors onto our wrists and use them all day and night, ostensibly unconcerned with the fact they're continuously recording us.

Gone are the days when we depended on them solely to give us an estimation of our daily steps. Currently, they can measure our sleep quality, blood pressure, glucose levels, our VO2 max.

It's a challenge to find a health indicator they don't track.

But can they do what they say they do? And are the data points we obsess over a accurate representation of reality? Do they enhance our overall health, or do the multitude of measurements and constant notifications just increase our daily stresses?

A Love-Hate Relationship

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

While she appreciates how her device tracks her runs, she finds some of its other features "daunting" at times - a feeling that became apparent during a significant period.

Before she realised she could put it into a specific mode, her smartwatch constantly alerted her she was not being energetic enough. Later on, the watch keeps telling her she's had a restless night.

"I am caring for a six-month old, I don't need to be notified my sleep was poor," she says. "I know that only too well."

Couldn't she just take it off?

"I suppose I could, theoretically, but I've got this push-pull dynamic with it," she continues. "I love it for its workout tracking, I sometimes question whether the additional features it can now do is perhaps excessive for me."

The Technology Behind the Tracking

Different brands of smartwatch has its own unique way of measuring your health metrics and processing your data, but the majority use sensors on the reverse of the watch.

They usually shine tiny, coloured LED lights onto your skin which can detect blood flow, identifying your BPM. More advanced devices detect changes in the electrical current that runs through the skin to get an idea of your recovery state.

A Fine Balance

A professor says that in general for smartwatches, it's a "difficult line" - while the rapidly advancing tech could realistically save lives, "spotting abnormalities before we notice anything", it could also turn us device users into the "worried well".

He points out that some of the latest wearables can carry out tests like medical-grade monitoring, which regularly monitor how normal the heart is. They can flag if someone is experiencing an irregular rhythm, where there is abnormal impulses in the heart causing an irregular heartbeat.

This does not automatically signal someone is on the verge of a heart attack, but it can give an advance notice they might be more susceptible of a stroke in the long term.

But how to make sense of these figures is not straightforward. The expert worries that as more functions are incorporated, people may not be able to fully comprehend their data.

"I'm not entirely convinced that having the capacity to monitor so many metrics is such a beneficial thing," he says.

A professor focusing on wearable tech agrees. Research into the impact of wearable tech on a specific group of cardiovascular patients suggested a significant portion of those who were given devices to monitor their heart health experienced heightened worry and were "had a higher tendency to use doctor's time".

She noted a vicious circle with her patients - they spotted a concerning reading on their watch. They grew concerned. Their pulse rose. They got increasingly anxious. They checked again, and their heart rate increased again.

"When people are presented with 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 feedback loop."