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A sense of building tension. Visible is the frosty air coming from my fellow runners as they do the "about to run" wiggle on the starting line.

A swift twitch of the hips.

I'm participating in my local 5km community parkrun and I mean business. It's almost time...

Wait a second. I need to start my watch. So does the runner beside me.

The person waiting tuts. I won't start until… done! Connection established, I'm off.

In the mele, it's challenging to find a wrist without a wearable on it. And this isn't only us runners who wear them.

It's a thriving, massive market. Names like Garmin are prevalent, each with an wide array of different models to suit a variety of budgets. Based on how feature-packed the device you select, price tags can range from a hundred pounds to a small fortune.

"I find it infuriating, I can't stop checking."

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

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

A small sample of the comments I've received from fellow smartwatch wearers when I ask what they feel about theirs.

The Monitoring Conundrum

My current opinion on my own device? At this moment, frustrating. It's indicating I'm not hitting my target, leading me to doubt whether the foliage I'm passing under are blocking my satellite signal.

A vast number of us fasten these little devices onto our arms and use them 24/7, seemingly comfortable with the fact they're constantly tracking us.

A distant memory are the days when we used them solely to give us an rough count of our daily steps. Today, they can analyse our nightly rest, stress levels, glucose levels, our body battery.

It's difficult to find a bodily function they don't track.

But are they able to do what they advertise? And are the numbers we scrutinise a accurate representation of reality? Do they boost our overall health, or do the avalanche of measurements and constant notifications just add to our daily stresses?

A Love-Hate Relationship

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

While she values how her device monitors her workouts, she finds some of its other capabilities "overwhelming" at times - a feeling first discovered during a significant period.

Before she realised she could change its configuration, her smartwatch repeatedly informed her she was being insufficiently active enough. Later on, the watch keeps telling her she's had a restless night.

"I am caring for a infant, there's no point to be told I'm tired," she says. "That fact is all too clearly."

Why doesn't she just take it off?

"It's possible, perhaps, but I'm in this complicated dynamic with it," she continues. "I appreciate it for its workout tracking, but I'm unsure whether the additional features it can now do is possibly overkill for me."

The Technology Behind the Tracking

Each model of smartwatch has its own proprietary way of monitoring your vitals and interpreting your data, but the most use optical sensors on the back of the watch.

They commonly shine small, green LED lights onto your wrist which can detect pulsation, recording your pulse rate. Sophisticated devices detect changes in the skin conductance that runs through the skin to get an idea of your recovery state.

Expert Perspectives

A professor says that in general for smartwatches, it's a "difficult line" - while the rapidly advancing tech could realistically prevent illness, "identifying issues before we feel unwell", it could also turn us the tracked into the "worried well".

He points out that newer wearables can perform tests like medical-grade monitoring, which continuously monitor how stable the heart is. They can alert if someone is experiencing atrial fibrillation (AF), where there is abnormal electrical activity in the heart causing an arrhythmia.

This does not necessarily indicate someone is on the verge of a cardiac event, but it can give an advance notice they might be more susceptible of a stroke in the years to come.

But how to understand these figures is complicated. The expert concerns that as additional features are incorporated, people may not be able to fully contextualise their data.

"I'm not entirely convinced that the ability to monitor so much data is such a good idea," he says.

A health researcher focusing on patient behaviour echoes this sentiment. Her work into the effect of wearable tech on a specific group of individuals with health issues suggested a noticeable percentage of those who were given devices to monitor their heart health experienced increased anxiety and were "far more likely to use doctor's time".

She noted a vicious circle with her patients - they saw a concerning reading on their watch. They grew concerned. Their pulse rose. They got increasingly anxious. They re-examined the data, and their anxiety rose further.

"If we see data about ourselves that we lack context for then, understandably, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We monitor, we obsess - it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."