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A sense of feeling of anticipation. Visible is the cold breath emanating from my fellow runners as they perform the "pre-race" wiggle on the start line.

A rapid movement 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 start my tracker. So does the runner next to me.

The person in the line expresses impatience. I'm not moving until… there! Signal acquired, I'm off.

In the mele, it's hard to see a person without a wearable on it. And it's not just us athletes who use them.

We're witnessing a explosive, multi-billion dollar industry. Companies like Apple Watch are prevalent, all offering an broad selection of different models to suit a spectrum of lifestyles. Based on how high tech the model you go for, costs can vary between an affordable sum to thousands of pounds.

"I find it infuriating, it's impossible to stop checking."

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

"I wish it wouldn't say about a poor sleep."

Just some of the comments people have shared from like-minded device users when I ask what they their opinion is on theirs.

A Sea of Statistics

My current opinion on mine? Currently, irritating. It's indicating I'm off pace, making me wonder whether the overhead branches I'm running below are blocking my GPS connection.

A vast number of us attach these small gadgets onto our arms and use them all day and night, apparently comfortable with the fact they're perpetually recording us.

Long past are the days when we relied on them solely to give us an rough count of our daily steps. Now, they can measure our sleep quality, heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), our body battery.

It's a challenge to find a physical metric they fail to monitor.

But are they able to do what they say they do? And are the data points we analyse a accurate representation of the truth? Do they enhance our daily wellness, or do the avalanche of metrics and cheerleading alerts just add to our daily stresses?

Addiction or Aid?

"I become a quite obsessed with mine," a wearer admits.

While she values how her device records her runs, she finds some of its other functions "overwhelming" at times - a feeling first discovered during a major life event.

Until she found out she could put it into a specific mode, her smartwatch constantly alerted her she was being insufficiently energetic enough. Now, the watch frequently reports her she's had a restless night.

"I've got a six-month old, there's no point to be told I've not slept," she says. "I know that perfectly well."

Why doesn't she just stop wearing it?

"I suppose I could, I suppose, but I have this push-pull dynamic with it," she explains. "I appreciate it for its workout tracking, I sometimes question whether all the other things it can now do is maybe too much for me."

Inside the Device

Each model of smartwatch has its own novel way of monitoring your health metrics and processing your data, but the vast bulk use detectors on the back of the watch.

They typically shine tiny, coloured LED lights onto your arm which can observe pulsation, recording your pulse rate. More advanced devices measure changes in the bioimpedance that passes over the skin to gauge your recovery state.

The Professional Viewpoint

A professor says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "delicate equilibrium" - while the ever-evolving tech could actually aid early diagnosis, "spotting abnormalities before we feel unwell", it could also turn us the tracked into the "anxious healthy".

He points out that some of the latest wearables can perform tests like medical-grade monitoring, which continuously monitor how normal the heart is. They can flag if someone is experiencing atrial fibrillation (AF), where there is abnormal impulses in the heart causing an uneven pulse.

This does not necessarily indicate someone is about to have a cardiac event, but it can give an early warning they might be more vulnerable of a stroke in the long term.

But how to make sense of these numbers is complex. The expert fears that as more functions are incorporated, people may struggle to fully comprehend their data.

"I remain sceptical that having the capacity to monitor so much data is such a positive development," he says.

A clinical psychologist focusing on wearable tech agrees. A study into the effect of wearable tech on a set of heart condition patients suggested a significant portion of those who were given devices to monitor their cardiac function experienced greater stress and were "far more likely to use healthcare resources".

She identified a pattern with her patients - they spotted a concerning reading on their watch. They grew concerned. Their heart rate rose. They got even more concerned. They checked again, and their anxiety increased again.

"Upon viewing stats 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 self-fulfilling prophecy."