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An atmosphere of nervous excitement. Visible is the frosty air coming from my rivals as they execute the "starting line" jiggle on the starting line.

A rapid twitch of the hips.

I'm participating in my local Saturday morning race and I'm serious. The countdown begins...

Wait a second. I must adjust my device. As does the runner next to me.

The person behind us tuts. I won't start until… done! Signal acquired, and I'm running.

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

It's a thriving, multi-billion pound industry. Names like Apple Watch dominate, all offering an wide array of various models to cater to a spectrum of lifestyles. Depending on how high tech the device you select, prices can vary between a hundred pounds to a significant investment.

"It makes me crazy, I can't stop checking."

"It reassures me… It feels like a supporter guiding me."

"Stop telling me about a poor sleep."

Just some of the comments I've received from other tracker enthusiasts when I ask what they their opinion is on theirs.

A Sea of Statistics

My feelings on my own device? At this moment, annoying. It's telling me I'm off pace, causing me to question whether the overhead branches I'm running below are disrupting my location tracking.

Countless individuals of us strap these small monitors onto our arms and wear them constantly, seemingly comfortable with the fact they're perpetually monitoring us.

Long past are the days when we used them only to give us an rough count of our pedometer reading. Today, they can track our sleep quality, stress levels, heart rate variability (HRV), our body battery.

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

But can they do what they claim to do? And are the data points we analyse a accurate representation of our actual health? Do they boost our daily wellness, or do the plethora of metrics and constant notifications just add to our sense of overwhelm?

A Love-Hate Relationship

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

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

Before she realised she could adjust the settings, her smartwatch repeatedly informed her she was failing to be active enough. In a new phase, the watch insists her she's had a poor sleep score.

"I am caring for a six-month old, I don't need to be notified my sleep was poor," she says. "I'm acutely aware all too clearly."

Is it not possible to just stop wearing it?

"It's possible, I suppose, but I have this push-pull dynamic with it," she says. "I love it for its fitness insights, I just wonder whether the myriad other functions it can now do is possibly too much for me."

How Do They Work?

Different brands of smartwatch has its own proprietary way of monitoring your vitals and interpreting your data, but the majority use optical sensors on the reverse of the watch.

They usually emit tiny, coloured LED lights onto your arm which can detect pulsation, detecting your pulse rate. More advanced devices analyse changes in the skin conductance that passes over the skin to gauge your recovery state.

Expert Perspectives

A data scientist says that for most people for smartwatches, it's a "fine balance" - while the continuously improving tech could potentially aid early diagnosis, "spotting abnormalities before we notice anything", it could also turn us device users into the "concerned but fine".

He points out that newer wearables can conduct tests like medical-grade monitoring, which continuously monitor how healthy the heart is. They can notify if someone is experiencing atrial fibrillation (AF), where there is abnormal signals in the heart causing an irregular heartbeat.

This does not necessarily indicate someone is imminently going to suffer a heart attack, but it can give an early warning they might be more susceptible of a blood clot in the years to come.

But how to understand these readings is not straightforward. The expert worries that as more functions are incorporated, people may not be able to fully comprehend their data.

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

A clinical psychologist specialising in wearable tech concurs. A study into the influence of wearable tech on a set of cardiovascular patients suggested a significant portion of those who were given devices to monitor their cardiac function experienced greater stress and were "had a higher tendency to use medical services".

She observed a cycle with her patients - they spotted a concerning reading on their watch. They grew concerned. Their BPM increased. They got more worried. They re-examined the data, and their heart rate went up again.

"Upon viewing stats about ourselves that we don't really understand then, of course, we are going to become concerned," the psychologist says. "We monitor, we check again - it becomes a vicious cycle."