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There's a feeling of anticipation. Apparent is the cold breath coming from my fellow runners as they perform the "starting line" shuffle on the start line.

A rapid twitch of the hips.

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

Oh, hang on. I must start my watch. The same goes for the person beside me.

The person in the line tuts. I won't start until… done! Signal acquired, and I'm running.

Amidst the crowd, it's challenging to see a person without a smartwatch on it. And it's not just us athletes who use them.

This is a booming, massive market. Names like Apple Watch dominate, featuring an wide selection of various versions to cater to a spectrum of needs. Depending on how feature-packed the device you select, price tags can start from £100 to a small fortune.

"It drives me insane, it's impossible to switch off."

"It reassures me… It's like a friend guiding me."

"Please don't notify me I've experienced a restless night."

A handful of the reactions I've received from fellow smartwatch wearers when I ask what they think of theirs.

The Data Dilemma

My feelings on my own device? Right now, annoying. It's indicating my speed is wrong, causing me to question whether the trees I'm running below are blocking my GPS connection.

A vast number of us fasten these small devices onto our arms and use them all day and night, seemingly comfortable with the fact they're continuously recording us.

Gone are the days when we depended on them solely to give us an idea of our step count. Currently, they can analyse our sleep quality, stress levels, heart rate variability (HRV), our VO2 max.

It's tricky to find a physical metric they fail to monitor.

But do they do what they say they do? And are the data points we scrutinise a accurate representation of our actual health? Do they boost our mental and physical wellbeing, or do the multitude of metrics and constant notifications just add to our sense of overwhelm?

A Complicated Bond

"I become a a little obsessed with mine," one user confesses.

While she loves how her device tracks her runs, she finds some of its other capabilities "excessive" at times - a feeling first discovered during a major life event.

Prior to discovering she could adjust the settings, her smartwatch repeatedly informed her she was failing to be active enough. Now, the watch frequently reports her she's had a bad night's sleep.

"I've got a infant, I don't need to be informed I'm tired," she says. "I'm acutely aware perfectly well."

Why doesn't she just stop wearing it?

"I suppose I could, theoretically, but I'm in this push-pull dynamic with it," she says. "I love it for its exercise data, I sometimes question whether the myriad other functions it can now do is possibly overkill for me."

Inside the Device

Each model of smartwatch has its own proprietary way of measuring your bodily functions and interpreting your data, but the vast bulk use detectors on the reverse of the watch.

They typically shine small, green LED lights onto your wrist which can detect blood flow, detecting your pulse rate. Higher-end devices measure changes in the electrical current that passes over the skin to gauge your stress levels.

A Fine Balance

One expert says that for most people for smartwatches, it's a "delicate equilibrium" - while the continuously improving tech could realistically prevent illness, "detecting disease before we feel unwell", it could also turn us the tracked into the "anxious healthy".

He points out that the most advanced wearables can conduct tests like medical-grade monitoring, which regularly monitor how stable the heart is. They can flag if someone is experiencing a heart arrhythmia, where there is irregular signals in the heart causing an uneven pulse.

This does not necessarily indicate someone is on the verge of a heart attack, but it can give an early warning they might be more at risk of a stroke in the years to come.

But how to make sense of these readings is not straightforward. The expert fears that as further capabilities are introduced, people may struggle to fully contextualise their data.

"I'm not entirely convinced that being able to monitor so much data is such a beneficial thing," he says.

A clinical psychologist studying wearable tech concurs. Research into the impact of wearable tech on a specific group of heart condition patients suggested a minority of those who were given devices to monitor their heart health experienced heightened worry and were "far more likely to use doctor's time".

She observed a vicious circle with her patients - they saw a worrying figure on their watch. They grew concerned. Their pulse increased. They got even more concerned. They looked a second time, and their heart rate increased again.

"Upon viewing stats about ourselves that we can't properly interpret then, naturally, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We monitor, we re-check - it becomes a vicious cycle."