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A sense of feeling of anticipation. Visible is the cold breath exhaled by my fellow runners as they execute the "pre-race" wiggle on the start line.

A rapid twitch of the hips.

I'm at my local 5km community parkrun and I mean business. Three, two, one...

Oh, hang on. I need to sort my watch. So does the runner next to me.

The person behind us tuts. I won't start until… there! Connection established, and I'm running.

During the scramble, it's challenging to find a wrist without a wearable on it. And this isn't only us runners who rely on them.

This is a booming, multi-billion pound industry. Brands like Samsung Galaxy lead the market, all offering an broad selection of various models to suit a spectrum of lifestyles. Depending on how feature-packed the model you go for, costs can range from £100 to thousands of pounds.

"I find it infuriating, I'm unable to relax."

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

"Stop telling me I've experienced a bad night's sleep."

A handful of the comments people have shared from like-minded device users when I ask what they feel about theirs.

A Sea of Statistics

My current opinion on my own device? Currently, annoying. It's telling me my speed is wrong, leading me to doubt whether the trees along my route are interfering with my satellite signal.

Millions of us fasten these little devices onto our arms and keep them on all day and night, seemingly at ease with the fact they're perpetually monitoring us.

A distant memory are the days when we relied on them only to give us an idea of our daily steps. Currently, they can track our nightly rest, heart rate, oxygen saturation, our VO2 max.

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

But can they do what they say they do? And are the numbers we obsess over a accurate representation of reality? Do they enhance our daily wellness, or do the plethora of readings and motivational messages just add to our daily stresses?

A Love-Hate Relationship

"I do get a a little fixated with mine," a wearer admits.

While she values how her device tracks her runs, she finds some of its other capabilities "excessive" at times - a feeling initially realised during a significant period.

Prior to discovering she could adjust the settings, her smartwatch repeatedly informed her she was failing to be productive enough. In a new phase, the watch insists her she's had a poor sleep score.

"I've got a young baby, there's no point to be notified I've not slept," she says. "I'm acutely aware only too well."

Couldn't she just stop wearing it?

"I suppose I could, theoretically, but I'm in this love-hate relationship with it," she says. "I appreciate it for its workout tracking, I sometimes question whether the additional features it can now do is perhaps overkill for me."

How Do They Work?

Every device of smartwatch has its own unique way of monitoring your bodily functions and processing your data, but the majority use sensors on the reverse of the watch.

They usually shine minute LED lights onto your skin which can observe pulsation, identifying your heartbeat. Higher-end devices detect changes in the electrical current that flows through the skin to gauge your nervous system activity.

Expert Perspectives

One expert says that for most people for smartwatches, it's a "fine balance" - while the rapidly advancing tech could realistically prevent illness, "identifying issues before we feel unwell", it could also turn us the tracked into the "anxious healthy".

He points out that newer wearables can perform 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 erratic signals in the heart causing an irregular heartbeat.

This does not necessarily indicate someone is imminently going to suffer a cardiac event, but it can give an preliminary indication they might be more vulnerable of a heart problem in the years to come.

But how to make sense of these numbers is complicated. The expert fears that as additional features are introduced, people may find it hard to fully contextualise their data.

"I have some doubts that being able to monitor so many metrics is such a good idea," he says.

A clinical psychologist focusing on patient behaviour echoes this sentiment. Research into the effect of wearable tech on a cohort of individuals with health issues suggested a noticeable percentage of those who were given devices to monitor their condition experienced heightened worry and were "far more likely to use healthcare resources".

She noted a vicious circle with her patients - they spotted a alarming metric on their watch. They became worried. Their heart rate rose. They got more worried. They re-examined the data, and their reading went up 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 look, we obsess - it becomes a vicious cycle."