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A sense of building tension. I can see the cold breath exhaled by my competitors as they execute the "pre-race" jiggle on the starting line.

A swift movement of the hips.

I'm at my local weekly parkrun event and I mean business. The countdown begins...

Oh, hang on. I have to sort my tracker. The same goes for the person beside me.

The person waiting expresses impatience. I won't start until… done! GPS ready, I'm off.

During the scramble, it's difficult to find a arm without a smartwatch on it. And it's not just us athletes who use them.

It's a thriving, multi-billion pound market. Names like Garmin are prevalent, featuring an extensive array of diverse devices to cater to a range of lifestyles. Depending on how advanced the device you go for, price tags can range from an affordable sum to a significant investment.

"It drives me insane, I'm unable to switch off."

"It reassures me… It feels like a friend encouraging me."

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

A handful of the responses I've had from fellow tracker enthusiasts when I inquire what they feel about theirs.

A Sea of Statistics

My current opinion on mine? Currently, frustrating. It's indicating I'm not hitting my target, causing me to question whether the overhead branches I'm passing under are interfering with my location tracking.

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

Long past are the days when we relied on them exclusively to give us an estimation of our pedometer reading. Now, they can analyse our sleep patterns, stress levels, heart rate variability (HRV), our body battery.

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

But do they do what they advertise? And are the statistics we obsess over a true reflection of reality? Do they enhance our mental and physical wellbeing, or do the avalanche of metrics and cheerleading alerts just contribute to our daily stresses?

Addiction or Aid?

"I become a quite fixated with mine," one user reveals.

While she loves how her device records her exercise, she finds some of its other features "overwhelming" at times - a feeling first discovered during a significant period.

Until she found out she could change its configuration, her smartwatch constantly alerted her she was not being energetic enough. In a new phase, the watch keeps telling her she's had a poor sleep score.

"I am caring for a infant, there's no point to be notified I'm tired," she says. "That fact is all too clearly."

Why doesn't she just take it off?

"I suppose I could, perhaps, but I have this love-hate relationship with it," she says. "I value it for its exercise data, but I'm unsure whether the additional features it can now do is perhaps excessive for me."

The Technology Behind the Tracking

Every device of smartwatch has its own novel way of tracking your vitals and analysing your data, but the vast bulk use optical sensors on the reverse of the watch.

They usually shine small, green LED lights onto your skin which can observe capillary action, identifying your BPM. Sophisticated devices analyse changes in the electrical current that flows through the skin to gauge your nervous system activity.

Expert Perspectives

One expert says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "difficult line" - while the rapidly advancing tech could potentially save lives, "identifying issues before we notice anything", it could also turn us the tracked into the "anxious healthy".

He points out that the most advanced wearables can conduct tests like electrocardiograms (ECGs), which regularly monitor how normal the heart is. They can alert if someone is experiencing a heart arrhythmia, where there is erratic signals in the heart causing an irregular heartbeat.

This does not automatically signal 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 years to come.

But how to interpret these figures is not straightforward. The expert worries that as more functions are added, people may find it hard to fully contextualise their data.

"I'm not entirely convinced that the ability to monitor so much data is such a positive development," he says.

A health researcher focusing on patient behaviour echoes this sentiment. A study into the influence of wearable tech on a specific group of heart condition patients suggested a noticeable percentage of those who were given devices to monitor their cardiac function experienced greater stress and were "far more likely to use doctor's time".

She noted a vicious circle with her patients - they spotted a concerning reading on their watch. They felt anxious. Their heart rate increased. They got more worried. They looked a second time, and their anxiety increased again.

"When people are presented with data about ourselves that we can't properly interpret then, understandably, we are going to seek clarification," the psychologist says. "We monitor, we re-check - it becomes a vicious cycle."