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There's a building tension. I can see the cold breath coming from my fellow runners as they perform the "starting line" wiggle on the beginning point.

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 start my watch. So does the runner alongside me.

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

During the scramble, it's challenging to spot a wrist without a wearable on it. And this isn't only us participants who use them.

It's a thriving, multi-billion pound industry. Brands like Apple Watch lead the market, featuring an broad array of various devices to cater to a variety of needs. Depending on how feature-packed the device you select, price tags can vary between £100 to thousands of pounds.

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

"It comforts me… It's like a companion supporting me."

"Stop telling me I've experienced a poor sleep."

Just some of the reactions I've received from other smartwatch wearers when I ask what they feel about theirs.

A Sea of Statistics

My current opinion on mine? Currently, frustrating. It's reporting I'm not hitting my target, leading me to doubt whether the overhead branches I'm running below are blocking my GPS connection.

Countless individuals of us strap these small devices onto our wrists and wear them constantly, apparently unconcerned with the fact they're constantly tracking us.

Long past are the days when we used them exclusively to give us an estimation of our step count. Now, they can track our sleep patterns, blood pressure, glucose levels, our VO2 max.

It's a challenge to find a health indicator they aren't designed to measure.

But are they able to do what they claim to do? And are the numbers we analyse a accurate representation of our actual health? Do they enhance our mental and physical wellbeing, or do the plethora of metrics and motivational messages just add to our everyday anxiety?

Addiction or Aid?

"I become a a little fixated with mine," one user admits.

While she loves how her device tracks her exercise, she finds some of its other functions "excessive" at times - a feeling initially realised during a significant period.

Until she found out she could change its configuration, her smartwatch repeatedly informed her she was failing to be active enough. In a new phase, the watch keeps telling her she's had a bad night's sleep.

"I've got a infant, it's unnecessary for me to be told I've not slept," she says. "I know that only too well."

Why doesn't she just remove it?

"I suppose I could, theoretically, but I've got this love-hate relationship with it," she says. "I value it for its workout tracking, but I'm unsure whether the myriad other functions it can now do is perhaps overkill for me."

How Do They Work?

Different brands of smartwatch has its own novel way of monitoring your vitals and analysing your data, but the majority use sensors on the back of the watch.

They typically emit minute LED lights onto your wrist which can observe capillary action, identifying your BPM. Sophisticated devices analyse changes in the skin conductance that passes over the skin to gauge your recovery state.

Expert Perspectives

One expert says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "difficult line" - while the ever-evolving tech could potentially aid early diagnosis, "detecting disease before we show symptoms", it could also turn us the tracked into the "anxious healthy".

He points out that some of the latest wearables can carry out tests like medical-grade monitoring, which continuously monitor how normal the heart is. They can notify if someone is experiencing an irregular rhythm, where there is irregular signals in the heart causing an irregular heartbeat.

This does not automatically signal someone is imminently going to suffer a cardiac event, but it can give an advance notice they might be more vulnerable of a blood clot in the future.

But how to interpret these numbers is complicated. The expert worries that as further capabilities are introduced, people may find it hard to fully contextualise their data.

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

A health researcher specialising in patient behaviour agrees. Her work into the impact of wearable tech on a set of heart condition patients suggested a noticeable percentage of those who were given devices to monitor their cardiac function experienced increased anxiety and were "far more likely to use medical services".

She observed a vicious circle with her patients - they noticed a worrying figure on their watch. They felt anxious. Their heart rate went up. They got even more concerned. They checked again, and their anxiety increased again.

"If we see stats about ourselves that we can't properly interpret then, understandably, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We monitor, we check again - it becomes a feedback loop."