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There's a building tension. I can see the chilled vapour emanating from my rivals as they execute the "starting line" shuffle on the starting line.

A rapid flick of the hips.

I'm lined up for my local 5km community parkrun and I'm focused. The countdown begins...

Wait a second. I need to sort my watch. So does the person next to me.

The person waiting sighs. I'm not moving until… there! Connection established, away I go.

In the mele, it's difficult to see a arm without a wearable on it. And it's not just us runners who use them.

This is a booming, multi-billion pound sector. Brands like Apple Watch dominate, all offering an broad selection of various versions to suit a variety of needs. According to how feature-packed the watch you go for, costs can start from an affordable sum to a significant investment.

"It drives me insane, I can't stop checking."

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

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

A handful of the reactions I've had from other tracker enthusiasts when I inquire what they feel about theirs.

The Monitoring Conundrum

My thoughts on my own device? Right now, frustrating. It's reporting my speed is wrong, causing me to question whether the foliage I'm running below are blocking my location tracking.

Countless individuals of us strap these small monitors onto our arms and keep them on constantly, ostensibly comfortable with the fact they're continuously monitoring us.

Long past are the days when we depended on them solely to give us an estimation of our step count. Today, they can track our sleep patterns, heart rate, 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 numbers we obsess over a accurate representation of the truth? Do they improve our mental and physical wellbeing, or do the plethora of readings and constant notifications just add to our everyday anxiety?

Addiction or Aid?

"I find myself getting a a little preoccupied with mine," an individual confesses.

While she loves how her device monitors her workouts, she finds some of its other functions "overwhelming" at times - a feeling initially realised during a major life event.

Before she realised she could change its configuration, her smartwatch kept telling her she was not being active enough. In a new phase, the watch insists her she's had a restless night.

"I've got a infant, it's unnecessary for me to be notified my sleep was poor," she says. "I'm acutely aware only too well."

Is it not possible to just take it off?

"It's possible, perhaps, but I'm in this complicated dynamic with it," she says. "I love it for its exercise data, I just wonder whether all the other things it can now do is perhaps overkill for me."

How Do They Work?

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

They typically shine minute LED lights onto your skin which can detect capillary action, identifying your heartbeat. More advanced devices detect changes in the electrical current that runs through the skin to gauge your nervous system activity.

The Professional Viewpoint

A data scientist says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "fine balance" - while the continuously improving tech could realistically save lives, "identifying issues before we notice anything", it could also turn us watch wearers into the "anxious healthy".

He points out that the most advanced wearables can perform tests like electrocardiograms (ECGs), which continuously monitor how normal the heart is. They can flag if someone is experiencing atrial fibrillation (AF), where there is irregular electrical activity in the heart causing an arrhythmia.

This does not automatically signal someone is on the verge of 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 additional features are added, people may find it hard to fully contextualise their data.

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

A professor specialising in cardiology agrees. A study into the influence of wearable tech on a specific group of cardiovascular patients suggested a significant portion of those who were given devices to monitor their cardiac function experienced increased anxiety and were "had a higher tendency to use medical services".

She noted a pattern with her patients - they spotted a worrying figure on their watch. They grew concerned. Their BPM rose. They got increasingly anxious. They checked again, and their reading rose further.

"Upon viewing data about ourselves that we lack context for then, understandably, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We look, we re-check - it becomes a vicious cycle."