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A sense of building tension. Apparent is the frosty air coming from my competitors as they perform the "starting line" wiggle on the starting line.

A rapid flick of the hips.

I'm lined up for my local 5km community parkrun and I mean business. Three, two, one...

Hold on. I must sort my device. So does the person alongside me.

The person in the line sighs. I won't start until… yes! Signal acquired, away I go.

During the scramble, it's difficult to see a wrist without a wearable on it. And this isn't only us athletes who wear them.

It's a thriving, multi-billion pound sector. Companies like Garmin lead the market, all offering an wide range of diverse devices to suit a variety of lifestyles. Based on how advanced the model you choose, costs can start from an affordable sum to a significant investment.

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

"It comforts me… It's like a supporter guiding me."

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

A handful of the responses I've had from like-minded device users when I inquire what they their opinion is on theirs.

The Monitoring Conundrum

My feelings on mine? Right now, frustrating. It's telling me my speed is wrong, causing me to question whether the foliage I'm running below are interfering with my location tracking.

Millions of us attach these little monitors onto our arms and wear them all day and night, ostensibly comfortable with the fact they're constantly tracking us.

A distant memory are the days when we depended on them only to give us an idea of our step count. Currently, they can analyse our sleep quality, blood pressure, heart rate variability (HRV), our body battery.

It's a challenge to find a bodily function they fail to monitor.

But are they able to do what they say they do? And are the data points we obsess over a faithful picture of reality? Do they boost our overall health, or do the plethora of readings and motivational messages just contribute to our sense of overwhelm?

A Love-Hate Relationship

"I find myself getting a a little obsessed with mine," an individual 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.

Until she found out she could adjust the settings, her smartwatch kept telling her she was failing to be productive enough. Now, the watch frequently reports her she's had a bad night's sleep.

"I am caring for a six-month old, I don't need to be notified I've not slept," she says. "I'm acutely aware only too well."

Couldn't she just take it off?

"I could, perhaps, but I've got this love-hate relationship with it," she explains. "I appreciate it for its fitness insights, but I'm unsure whether the myriad other functions it can now do is perhaps overkill for me."

Inside the Device

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

They typically project small, green LED lights onto your wrist which can observe capillary action, detecting your heartbeat. More advanced devices detect changes in the bioimpedance that passes over the skin to gauge your nervous system activity.

A Fine Balance

A professor says that for most people for smartwatches, it's a "difficult line" - while the continuously improving tech could actually prevent illness, "identifying issues before we feel unwell", it could also turn us watch wearers into the "concerned but fine".

He points out that newer wearables can perform tests like heart rhythm analysis, which continuously monitor how stable the heart is. They can flag if someone is experiencing a heart arrhythmia, where there is irregular electrical activity in the heart causing an irregular heartbeat.

This does not necessarily indicate someone is imminently going to suffer a cardiac event, but it can give an advance notice they might be more susceptible of a stroke in the long term.

But how to make sense of these figures is complicated. The expert fears that as further capabilities are added, people may find it hard to fully contextualise their data.

"I have some doubts that being able to monitor so much data is such a good idea," he says.

A professor focusing on patient behaviour concurs. Her work 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 heart health experienced increased anxiety and were "more inclined to use doctor's time".

She identified a pattern with her patients - they saw a alarming metric on their watch. They grew concerned. Their heart rate rose. They got increasingly anxious. They re-examined the data, and their reading increased again.

"If we see data about ourselves that we can't properly interpret then, of course, we are going to seek clarification," the psychologist says. "We look, we re-check - it becomes a vicious cycle."