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There's a nervous excitement. Apparent is the frosty air exhaled by my competitors as they execute the "pre-race" jiggle on the start line.

A swift twitch of the hips.

I'm at my local Saturday morning race and I'm serious. Three, two, one...

Hold on. I need to start my tracker. As does the person next to me.

The person waiting tuts. I'm not moving until… yes! Connection established, I'm off.

In the mele, it's difficult to find a arm without a smartwatch on it. And this extends beyond us athletes who rely on them.

This is a booming, multi-billion dollar market. Names like Apple Watch lead the market, all offering an wide range of diverse models to fit a range of lifestyles. Based on how high tech the device you select, costs can start from £100 to a small fortune.

"I find it infuriating, I can't switch off."

"It provides solace… It feels like a friend supporting me."

"Please don't notify me I've experienced a bad night's sleep."

Just some of the comments people have shared from other smartwatch wearers when I question what they feel about theirs.

A Sea of Statistics

My thoughts on mine? Right now, irritating. It's indicating I'm off pace, making me wonder whether the trees I'm running below are disrupting my satellite signal.

A vast number of us attach these compact devices onto our wrists and use them 24/7, seemingly comfortable with the fact they're continuously monitoring us.

A distant memory are the days when we relied on them only to give us an rough count of our pedometer reading. Today, they can analyse our nightly rest, blood pressure, oxygen saturation, our VO2 max.

It's a challenge to find a physical metric they aren't designed to measure.

But are they able to do what they claim to do? And are the numbers we scrutinise a true reflection of our actual health? Do they enhance our daily wellness, or do the plethora of readings and motivational messages just contribute to our everyday anxiety?

A Love-Hate Relationship

"I find myself getting a a little fixated with mine," one user confesses.

While she loves how her device records her workouts, she finds some of its other functions "excessive" at times - a feeling that became apparent during a pregnancy.

Prior to discovering she could adjust the settings, her smartwatch constantly alerted her she was not being active enough. Later on, the watch keeps telling her she's had a bad night's sleep.

"I have a young baby, I don't need to be notified my sleep was poor," she says. "I'm acutely aware perfectly well."

Couldn't she just stop wearing it?

"I could, I suppose, but I've got this complicated dynamic with it," she explains. "I love it for its workout tracking, but I'm unsure whether all the other things it can now do is possibly excessive for me."

The Technology Behind the Tracking

Each model of smartwatch has its own unique way of measuring your vitals and processing your data, but the most use detectors on the back of the watch.

They usually emit small, green LED lights onto your arm which can detect capillary action, identifying your heartbeat. Sophisticated devices detect changes in the skin conductance that flows through the skin to assess your recovery state.

A Fine Balance

One expert says that for most people for smartwatches, it's a "difficult line" - while the continuously improving tech could actually prevent illness, "spotting abnormalities before we show symptoms", it could also turn us the tracked into the "worried well".

He points out that the most advanced wearables can conduct tests like heart rhythm analysis, which continuously monitor how healthy the heart is. They can notify if someone is experiencing an irregular rhythm, where there is abnormal impulses in the heart causing an irregular heartbeat.

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 heart problem in the future.

But how to understand these readings is complex. The expert worries that as further capabilities are added, people may not be able to fully comprehend 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 patient behaviour agrees. A study into the impact of wearable tech on a set of cardiovascular patients suggested a noticeable percentage of those who were given devices to monitor their heart health experienced greater stress and were "far more likely to use medical services".

She identified a vicious circle with her patients - they saw a worrying figure on their watch. They became worried. Their BPM went up. They got more worried. They checked again, and their heart rate increased again.

"When people are presented with numbers about ourselves that we lack context for then, of course, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We check, we check again - it becomes a vicious cycle."