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An atmosphere of nervous excitement. Visible is the cold breath exhaled by my fellow runners as they execute the "about to run" wiggle on the start line.

A quick flick of the hips.

I'm at my local weekly parkrun event and I'm serious. The countdown begins...

Wait a second. I must adjust my tracker. So does the person next to me.

The person waiting sighs. I'm not moving until… yes! Signal acquired, and I'm running.

Amidst the crowd, it's challenging to find a arm without a wearable on it. And this extends beyond us participants who wear them.

We're witnessing a explosive, multi-billion dollar market. Names like Garmin dominate, each with an wide selection of different models to fit a spectrum of budgets. Based on how feature-packed the model you go for, price tags can start from an affordable sum to a significant investment.

"It drives me insane, I'm unable to switch off."

"It reassures me… It acts as a supporter guiding me."

"I wish it wouldn't say I've experienced a restless night."

Just some of the comments I've received from fellow device users when I inquire what they feel about theirs.

The Data Dilemma

My feelings on mine? At this moment, annoying. It's reporting I'm off pace, leading me to doubt whether the foliage along my route are disrupting my satellite signal.

Millions of us strap these little devices onto our wrists and wear them all day and night, seemingly unconcerned with the fact they're constantly monitoring us.

Long past are the days when we relied on them solely to give us an rough count of our step count. Today, they can measure our sleep patterns, heart rate, glucose levels, our recovery score.

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

But do they do what they advertise? And are the data points we analyse a accurate representation of our actual health? Do they enhance our daily wellness, or do the multitude of metrics and cheerleading alerts just increase our everyday anxiety?

A Love-Hate Relationship

"I find myself getting a quite fixated with mine," an individual reveals.

While she loves how her device tracks her exercise, she finds some of its other features "excessive" at times - a feeling initially realised during a pregnancy.

Before she realised she could change its configuration, her smartwatch repeatedly informed her she was failing to be active enough. Later on, the watch frequently reports her she's had a restless night.

"I am caring for a six-month old, I don't need to be told I'm tired," she says. "I'm acutely aware all too clearly."

Couldn't she just take it off?

"It's possible, I suppose, but I'm in this love-hate relationship with it," she says. "I love it for its exercise data, but I'm unsure whether all the other things it can now do is maybe too much for me."

The Technology Behind the Tracking

Each model of smartwatch has its own unique way of monitoring your vitals and analysing your data, but the majority use sensors on the underside of the watch.

They typically project minute LED lights onto your arm which can observe capillary action, recording your BPM. Higher-end devices analyse changes in the electrical current that runs through the skin to assess your nervous system activity.

A Fine Balance

A professor says that in general for smartwatches, it's a "fine balance" - while the continuously improving tech could realistically prevent illness, "detecting disease before we show symptoms", it could also turn us watch wearers into the "anxious healthy".

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

This does not mean someone is imminently going to suffer a heart attack, but it can give an preliminary indication they might be more vulnerable of a heart problem in the long term.

But how to understand these readings is not straightforward. The expert concerns that as more functions are added, people may find it hard to fully understand their data.

"I have some doubts that the ability to monitor so many things is such a good idea," he says.

A professor specialising in wearable tech agrees. A study into the influence of wearable tech on a cohort of cardiovascular patients suggested a minority of those who were given devices to monitor their heart health experienced heightened worry and were "had a higher tendency to use doctor's time".

She noted a cycle with her patients - they noticed a worrying figure on their watch. They grew concerned. Their pulse rose. They got even more concerned. They looked a second time, and their heart rate rose further.

"If we see stats about ourselves that we don't really understand then, naturally, we are going to seek clarification," the psychologist says. "We check, we re-check - it becomes a vicious cycle."