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An atmosphere of feeling of anticipation. I can see the chilled vapour coming from my fellow runners as they do the "pre-race" shuffle on the starting line.

A quick movement of the hips.

I'm participating in my local 5km community parkrun and I'm serious. Three, two, one...

Oh, hang on. I must start my tracker. The same goes for the person alongside me.

The person behind us sighs. I refuse to go until… done! Signal acquired, and I'm running.

During the scramble, it's challenging to spot a person without a wearable on it. And it's not just us participants who wear them.

We're witnessing a explosive, massive industry. Brands like Garmin dominate, each with an wide selection of diverse devices to suit a range of budgets. According to how advanced the model you choose, prices can start from an affordable sum to a significant investment.

"It drives me insane, I'm unable to stop checking."

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

"Stop telling me about a bad night's sleep."

A handful of the responses I've had from other device users when I inquire what they think of theirs.

The Monitoring Conundrum

My current opinion on mine? At this moment, irritating. It's telling me my speed is wrong, making me wonder whether the foliage I'm passing under are interfering with my GPS connection.

Millions of us attach these little gadgets onto our wrists and use them constantly, ostensibly comfortable with the fact they're constantly recording us.

Long past are the days when we used them only to give us an estimation of our step count. Today, they can analyse our nightly rest, stress levels, heart rate variability (HRV), our VO2 max.

It's tricky to find a health indicator they fail to monitor.

But can they do what they claim to do? And are the data points we analyse a true reflection of reality? Do they boost our mental and physical wellbeing, or do the plethora of readings and motivational messages just contribute to our sense of overwhelm?

A Complicated Bond

"I become a a little preoccupied with mine," an individual confesses.

While she values how her device tracks her runs, she finds some of its other capabilities "overwhelming" at times - a feeling initially realised during a pregnancy.

Until she found out she could adjust the settings, her smartwatch kept telling her she was being insufficiently energetic enough. Now, the watch keeps telling her she's had a bad night's sleep.

"I have a young baby, there's no point to be notified my sleep was poor," she says. "I'm acutely aware all too clearly."

Couldn't she just take it off?

"I suppose I could, I suppose, but I've got this complicated dynamic with it," she says. "I appreciate it for its exercise data, but I'm unsure whether the additional features it can now do is possibly too much for me."

How Do They Work?

Each model of smartwatch has its own proprietary way of tracking your bodily functions and interpreting your data, but the vast bulk use sensors on the underside of the watch.

They typically shine minute LED lights onto your skin which can observe blood flow, identifying your heartbeat. More advanced devices detect changes in the bioimpedance that runs through the skin to assess your stress levels.

Expert Perspectives

One expert says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "difficult line" - while the rapidly advancing tech could potentially prevent illness, "identifying issues before we notice anything", it could also turn us device users into the "concerned but fine".

He points out that some of the latest wearables can carry out tests like heart rhythm analysis, which regularly monitor how stable the heart is. They can flag if someone is experiencing atrial fibrillation (AF), where there is abnormal electrical activity in the heart causing an uneven pulse.

This does not automatically signal someone is imminently going to suffer a heart attack, but it can give an early warning they might be more vulnerable of a heart problem in the future.

But how to make sense of these figures is complicated. The expert concerns that as additional features are added, people may struggle to fully contextualise 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 cardiology concurs. Her work into the impact of wearable tech on a cohort of heart condition patients suggested a noticeable percentage 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 identified a vicious circle with her patients - they spotted a alarming metric on their watch. They felt anxious. Their heart rate increased. They got more worried. They looked a second time, and their heart rate went up again.

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