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There's a feeling of anticipation. I can see the frosty air exhaled by my competitors as they do the "about to run" wiggle on the start line.

A rapid movement of the hips.

I'm participating in my local weekly parkrun event and I'm focused. Three, two, one...

Hold on. I have to sort my device. As does the guy alongside me.

The person behind us expresses impatience. I'm not moving until… yes! GPS ready, away I go.

Amidst the crowd, it's hard to find a arm without a wearable on it. And this isn't only us participants who rely on them.

It's a thriving, massive market. Brands like Samsung Galaxy are prevalent, each with an wide selection of various versions to fit a variety of lifestyles. According to how feature-packed the watch you go for, costs can start from an affordable sum to thousands of pounds.

"It makes me crazy, I'm unable to relax."

"It provides solace… It's like a supporter supporting me."

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

Just some of the reactions people have shared from like-minded smartwatch wearers when I inquire what they their opinion is on theirs.

The Monitoring Conundrum

My thoughts on mine? Right now, frustrating. It's telling me I'm not hitting my target, making me wonder whether the overhead branches I'm passing under are blocking my GPS connection.

Millions of us strap these little monitors onto our wrists and keep them on constantly, apparently comfortable with the fact they're perpetually monitoring us.

Long past are the days when we depended on them exclusively to give us an rough count of our daily steps. Currently, they can analyse our sleep patterns, blood pressure, glucose levels, our body battery.

It's difficult to find a physical metric they don't track.

But can they do what they say they do? And are the data points we scrutinise a true reflection of our actual health? Do they enhance our overall health, or do the avalanche of measurements and cheerleading alerts just contribute to our daily stresses?

Addiction or Aid?

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

While she appreciates how her device records her runs, she finds some of its other capabilities "overwhelming" at times - a feeling that became apparent during a pregnancy.

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

"I am caring for a young baby, there's no point to be notified I've not slept," she says. "I know that all too clearly."

Is it not possible to just take it off?

"I could, theoretically, but I have this complicated dynamic with it," she says. "I value it for its workout tracking, I sometimes question whether the myriad other functions it can now do is possibly too much for me."

Inside the Device

Different brands of smartwatch has its own novel way of measuring your bodily functions and interpreting your data, but the majority use detectors on the reverse of the watch.

They usually shine small, green LED lights onto your wrist which can monitor blood flow, recording your BPM. Higher-end devices analyse changes in the electrical current that runs through the skin to get an idea of your recovery state.

Expert Perspectives

One expert says that in general for smartwatches, it's a "difficult line" - while the ever-evolving tech could potentially prevent illness, "spotting abnormalities before we show symptoms", it could also turn us watch wearers into the "worried well".

He points out that the most advanced wearables can carry out tests like medical-grade monitoring, which regularly monitor how healthy the heart is. They can notify if someone is experiencing an irregular rhythm, where there is erratic electrical activity in the heart causing an arrhythmia.

This does not mean someone is imminently going to suffer a cardiac event, but it can give an early warning they might be more at risk of a blood clot in the years to come.

But how to interpret these figures is complex. The expert fears that as additional features are incorporated, people may struggle to fully understand their data.

"I remain sceptical that having the capacity to monitor so many metrics is such a positive development," he says.

A professor specialising in wearable tech echoes this sentiment. A study into the influence of wearable tech on a cohort of individuals with health issues 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 medical services".

She observed a vicious circle with her patients - they spotted a alarming metric on their watch. They felt anxious. Their pulse went up. They got increasingly anxious. They checked again, and their heart rate rose further.

"When people are presented with stats about ourselves that we lack context for then, understandably, we are going to become concerned," the psychologist says. "We check, we check again - it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."