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An atmosphere of nervous excitement. Apparent is the frosty air coming from my rivals as they perform the "pre-race" wiggle on the start line.

A quick movement of the hips.

I'm lined up for my local 5km community parkrun and I'm focused. The countdown begins...

Oh, hang on. I need to start my tracker. The same goes for the person next to me.

The person in the line tuts. I'm not moving until… there! GPS ready, I'm off.

In the mele, it's difficult to find a wrist without a wearable on it. And it's not just us participants who use them.

We're witnessing a thriving, massive market. Brands like Apple Watch dominate, featuring an wide range of various devices to fit a variety of budgets. According to how high tech the device you choose, price tags can start from £100 to a significant investment.

"I find it infuriating, I'm unable to stop checking."

"It reassures me… It feels like a supporter guiding me."

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

A small sample of the responses people have shared from like-minded tracker enthusiasts when I ask what they their opinion is on theirs.

The Data Dilemma

My thoughts on my own device? Right now, irritating. It's telling me my speed is wrong, causing me to question whether the foliage along my route are blocking my location tracking.

A vast number of us fasten these compact gadgets onto our arms and use them all day and night, apparently comfortable with the fact they're continuously monitoring us.

Long past are the days when we relied on them exclusively to give us an rough count of our step count. Today, they can track our sleep patterns, blood pressure, heart rate variability (HRV), our VO2 max.

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

But can they do what they say they do? And are the statistics we analyse a accurate representation of the truth? Do they boost our daily wellness, or do the avalanche of metrics and cheerleading alerts just add to our everyday anxiety?

A Love-Hate Relationship

"I become a a little obsessed with mine," a wearer reveals.

While she appreciates how her device tracks her exercise, she finds some of its other capabilities "daunting" at times - a feeling that became apparent during a significant period.

Until she found out she could adjust the settings, her smartwatch kept telling her she was being insufficiently active enough. Now, the watch keeps telling her she's had a poor sleep score.

"I am caring for a young baby, it's unnecessary for me to be informed I've not slept," she says. "I'm acutely aware only too well."

Is it not possible to just take it off?

"I could, I suppose, but I've got this complicated dynamic with it," she says. "I love it for its workout tracking, I just wonder whether the myriad other functions it can now do is perhaps too much for me."

Inside the Device

Different brands of smartwatch has its own unique way of measuring your health metrics and analysing your data, but the majority use optical sensors on the back of the watch.

They typically emit small, green LED lights onto your wrist which can observe capillary action, detecting your pulse rate. Higher-end devices analyse changes in the bioimpedance that passes over the skin to assess your nervous system activity.

The Professional Viewpoint

A data scientist says that in general for smartwatches, it's a "fine balance" - while the continuously improving tech could actually aid early diagnosis, "identifying issues before we feel unwell", it could also turn us device users into the "anxious healthy".

He points out that newer wearables can perform tests like heart rhythm analysis, which constantly monitor how healthy 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 mean someone is about to have a cardiac event, but it can give an advance notice they might be more vulnerable of a stroke in the years to come.

But how to understand these numbers is complex. The expert worries that as more functions are incorporated, people may not be able to fully understand their data.

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

A health researcher specialising in wearable tech echoes this sentiment. Research into the impact of wearable tech on a set of cardiovascular patients suggested a significant portion of those who were given devices to monitor their condition experienced greater stress and were "had a higher tendency to use healthcare resources".

She observed a vicious circle with her patients - they spotted a alarming metric on their watch. They grew concerned. Their BPM went up. They got increasingly anxious. They looked a second time, and their anxiety rose further.

"Upon viewing numbers about ourselves that we can't properly interpret then, naturally, we are going to seek clarification," the psychologist says. "We look, we obsess - it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."