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An atmosphere of nervous excitement. Visible is the chilled vapour emanating from my competitors as they do the "about to run" jiggle on the beginning point.

A rapid twitch of the hips.

I'm participating in my local weekly parkrun event and I'm focused. It's almost time...

Hold on. I have to adjust my device. So does the guy alongside me.

The person behind us expresses impatience. I'm not moving until… there! Connection established, away I go.

In the mele, it's hard to find a wrist without a fitness tracker on it. And it's not just us runners who wear them.

We're witnessing a thriving, multi-billion dollar market. Names like Garmin are prevalent, each with an extensive selection of different versions to suit a range of needs. Based on how high tech the model you select, price tags can vary between £100 to thousands of pounds.

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

"It comforts me… It acts as a friend encouraging me."

"Please don't notify me I've had a restless night."

Just some of the reactions I've had from other smartwatch wearers when I ask what they their opinion is on theirs.

A Sea of Statistics

My thoughts on my own device? At this moment, annoying. It's indicating I'm off pace, leading me to doubt whether the trees along my route are blocking my location tracking.

Millions of us fasten these little monitors onto our arms and use them 24/7, apparently unconcerned with the fact they're constantly monitoring us.

A distant memory are the days when we depended on them solely to give us an rough count of our daily steps. Now, they can measure our nightly rest, heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), our recovery score.

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

But are they able to do what they advertise? And are the numbers we scrutinise a accurate representation of our actual health? Do they improve our overall health, or do the avalanche of readings and cheerleading alerts just increase our everyday anxiety?

A Complicated Bond

"I do get a a little preoccupied with mine," an individual admits.

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

Prior to discovering she could change its configuration, her smartwatch kept telling her she was failing to be productive enough. In a new phase, the watch keeps telling her she's had a restless night.

"I have a six-month old, I don't need to be told my sleep was poor," she says. "I'm acutely aware all too clearly."

Is it not possible to just remove it?

"I could, I suppose, but I'm in this push-pull dynamic with it," she says. "I value it for its exercise data, I sometimes question whether the additional features it can now do is maybe excessive for me."

How Do They Work?

Each model of smartwatch has its own novel way of monitoring your vitals and interpreting your data, but the most use detectors on the reverse of the watch.

They commonly shine minute LED lights onto your wrist which can detect pulsation, recording your BPM. Higher-end devices measure changes in the electrical current that flows through the skin to assess your nervous system activity.

A Fine Balance

A professor says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "fine balance" - while the ever-evolving tech could potentially save lives, "identifying issues before we show symptoms", it could also turn us device users into the "anxious healthy".

He points out that some of the latest wearables can perform tests like electrocardiograms (ECGs), which regularly monitor how healthy the heart is. They can notify if someone is experiencing a heart arrhythmia, where there is irregular signals 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 preliminary indication they might be more susceptible of a stroke in the years to come.

But how to understand these readings is not straightforward. The expert fears that as further capabilities are incorporated, people may find it hard to fully comprehend their data.

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

A clinical psychologist focusing on wearable tech echoes this sentiment. Research into the impact of wearable tech on a set of heart condition patients suggested a minority 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 observed a cycle with her patients - they spotted a concerning reading on their watch. They felt anxious. Their pulse increased. They got increasingly anxious. They checked again, and their reading went up again.

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