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There's a nervous excitement. I can see the frosty air coming from my rivals as they perform the "about to run" shuffle on the start line.

A quick flick of the hips.

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

Wait a second. I need to sort my tracker. The same goes for the runner alongside me.

The person waiting expresses impatience. I refuse to go until… there! GPS ready, and I'm running.

Amidst the crowd, it's hard to see a person without a smartwatch on it. And this extends beyond us participants who use them.

It's a explosive, multi-billion dollar market. Names like Apple Watch lead the market, each with an broad array of various devices to fit a variety of lifestyles. Depending on how high tech the model you select, price tags can vary between a hundred pounds to a significant investment.

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

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

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

A small sample of the reactions people have shared from like-minded smartwatch wearers when I inquire what they think of theirs.

The Monitoring Conundrum

My current opinion on mine? At this moment, irritating. It's indicating I'm off pace, leading me to doubt whether the trees along my route are blocking my location tracking.

Countless individuals of us strap these little monitors onto our arms and wear them 24/7, apparently at ease with the fact they're perpetually recording us.

Gone are the days when we used them solely to give us an idea of our pedometer reading. Currently, they can measure our sleep patterns, heart rate, oxygen saturation, our recovery score.

It's a challenge to find a bodily function they aren't designed to measure.

But do they do what they claim to do? And are the statistics we analyse a true reflection of the truth? Do they enhance our overall health, or do the plethora of readings and cheerleading alerts just add to our daily stresses?

A Love-Hate Relationship

"I find myself getting a bit fixated with mine," an individual confesses.

While she appreciates how her device monitors her runs, she finds some of its other functions "excessive" at times - a feeling first discovered during a significant period.

Before she realised she could put it into a specific mode, her smartwatch kept telling her she was being insufficiently productive enough. Later on, the watch frequently reports her she's had a restless night.

"I am caring for a infant, there's no point to be informed I've not slept," she says. "I know that perfectly well."

Couldn't she just take it off?

"I could, perhaps, but I'm in this complicated dynamic with it," she continues. "I appreciate it for its workout tracking, I sometimes question whether all the other things it can now do is possibly overkill for me."

The Technology Behind the Tracking

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

They commonly emit small, green LED lights onto your skin which can detect capillary action, detecting your pulse rate. More advanced devices detect changes in the skin conductance that passes over the skin to get an idea of your nervous system activity.

Expert Perspectives

A data scientist says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "difficult line" - while the ever-evolving tech could realistically save lives, "spotting abnormalities before we show symptoms", it could also turn us device users into the "worried well".

He points out that newer wearables can conduct tests like heart rhythm analysis, which constantly monitor how healthy the heart is. They can alert if someone is experiencing an irregular rhythm, where there is abnormal impulses in the heart causing an irregular heartbeat.

This does not necessarily indicate someone is on the verge of 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 interpret these numbers is complex. The expert fears that as additional features are incorporated, people may find it hard to fully understand their data.

"I have some doubts that being able to monitor so many things is such a positive development," he says.

A clinical psychologist focusing on wearable tech concurs. Her work into the impact of wearable tech on a specific group of cardiovascular patients suggested a noticeable percentage of those who were given devices to monitor their cardiac function experienced heightened worry and were "had a higher tendency to use doctor's time".

She identified a cycle with her patients - they saw a alarming metric on their watch. They felt anxious. Their pulse went up. They got more worried. They re-examined the data, and their reading increased again.

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