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An atmosphere of nervous excitement. Visible is the cold breath exhaled by my fellow runners as they perform the "about to run" jiggle on the beginning point.

A quick flick of the hips.

I'm participating in my local weekly parkrun event and I'm serious. It's almost time...

Wait a second. I have to sort my tracker. The same goes for the person alongside me.

The person behind us sighs. I refuse to go until… there! GPS ready, and I'm running.

During the scramble, it's difficult to spot a person without a smartwatch on it. And this extends beyond us athletes who use them.

It's a thriving, massive market. Companies like Apple Watch are prevalent, each with an extensive selection of different devices to suit a spectrum of lifestyles. According to how advanced the watch you choose, price tags can vary between an affordable sum to a small fortune.

"I find it infuriating, I can't switch off."

"It reassures me… It's like a companion supporting me."

"Stop telling me I've experienced a restless night."

A handful of the reactions I've received from fellow tracker enthusiasts when I inquire what they their opinion is on theirs.

A Sea of Statistics

My feelings on mine? At this moment, frustrating. It's reporting my speed is wrong, leading me to doubt whether the overhead branches I'm passing under are blocking my location tracking.

A vast number of us strap these small devices onto our arms and wear them 24/7, ostensibly unconcerned with the fact they're constantly monitoring us.

A distant memory are the days when we depended on them exclusively to give us an idea of our step count. Today, they can analyse our sleep patterns, 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 claim to do? And are the data points we analyse a faithful picture of our actual health? Do they boost our mental and physical wellbeing, or do the avalanche of measurements and cheerleading alerts just increase our everyday anxiety?

A Complicated Bond

"I find myself getting a a little fixated with mine," a wearer reveals.

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

Until she found out she could adjust the settings, her smartwatch repeatedly informed her she was failing to be productive enough. In a new phase, the watch keeps telling her she's had a bad night's sleep.

"I have a six-month old, there's no point to be informed I'm tired," she says. "I'm acutely aware perfectly well."

Why doesn't she just remove it?

"It's possible, I suppose, but I have this complicated dynamic with it," she continues. "I value it for its fitness insights, I just wonder whether the myriad other functions it can now do is maybe too much for me."

Inside the Device

Different brands of smartwatch has its own proprietary way of measuring your health metrics and processing your data, but the most use detectors on the back of the watch.

They typically project small, green LED lights onto your wrist which can detect blood flow, recording your heartbeat. Sophisticated devices measure changes in the bioimpedance that flows through the skin to assess your recovery state.

A Fine Balance

A professor says that for most people for smartwatches, it's a "difficult line" - while the rapidly advancing tech could potentially save lives, "identifying issues before we feel unwell", it could also turn us device users into the "anxious healthy".

He points out that newer wearables can perform tests like electrocardiograms (ECGs), which constantly monitor how stable the heart is. They can flag if someone is experiencing atrial fibrillation (AF), where there is erratic impulses 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 advance notice they might be more susceptible of a heart problem in the years to come.

But how to interpret these readings is complex. The expert fears that as further capabilities are introduced, people may struggle to fully understand their data.

"I remain sceptical that being able to monitor so many things is such a good idea," he says.

A health researcher specialising in cardiology concurs. Her work into the effect of wearable tech on a cohort of heart condition patients suggested a significant portion of those who were given devices to monitor their cardiac function experienced increased anxiety and were "more inclined to use doctor's time".

She noted a pattern with her patients - they saw a concerning reading on their watch. They felt anxious. Their heart rate increased. They got more worried. They re-examined the data, and their reading rose further.

"When people are presented with numbers about ourselves that we can't properly interpret then, understandably, we are going to seek clarification," the psychologist says. "We monitor, we obsess - it becomes a vicious cycle."