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There's a building tension. Apparent is the chilled vapour coming from my competitors as they perform the "pre-race" wiggle on the beginning point.

A swift movement of the hips.

I'm lined up for my local 5km community parkrun and I'm serious. It's almost time...

Hold on. I must start my watch. So does the guy next to me.

The person waiting sighs. I won't start until… there! GPS ready, away I go.

Amidst the crowd, it's challenging to find a person without a smartwatch on it. And this extends beyond us runners who use them.

It's a booming, multi-billion pound industry. Names like Garmin are prevalent, featuring an wide range of diverse versions to cater to a variety of lifestyles. Depending on how advanced the watch you go for, prices can range from an affordable sum to a significant investment.

"I find it infuriating, I'm unable to relax."

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

"Stop telling me about a bad night's sleep."

Just some of the reactions I've received from fellow smartwatch wearers when I inquire what they think of theirs.

The Monitoring Conundrum

My feelings on mine? Currently, annoying. It's telling me I'm off pace, leading me to doubt whether the trees I'm passing under are blocking my GPS connection.

Countless individuals of us attach these little monitors onto our wrists and keep them on 24/7, seemingly unconcerned with the fact they're constantly tracking us.

Gone are the days when we used them only to give us an idea of our pedometer reading. Today, they can analyse our sleep patterns, stress levels, glucose levels, our VO2 max.

It's difficult to find a physical metric they don't track.

But are they able to do what they say they do? And are the statistics we obsess over a true reflection of the truth? Do they improve our mental and physical wellbeing, or do the plethora of readings and constant notifications just add to our everyday anxiety?

Addiction or Aid?

"I become a quite fixated with mine," an individual reveals.

While she appreciates how her device monitors her exercise, she finds some of its other functions "excessive" at times - a feeling initially realised during a pregnancy.

Until she found out she could change its configuration, her smartwatch kept telling her she was failing to be active enough. In a new phase, the watch insists her she's had a poor sleep score.

"I am caring for a young baby, there's no point to be told I've not slept," she says. "I'm acutely aware perfectly well."

Why doesn't she just remove it?

"It's possible, I suppose, but I have this push-pull dynamic with it," she explains. "I love it for its workout tracking, I just wonder whether the additional features 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 bodily functions and analysing your data, but the vast bulk use detectors on the back of the watch.

They usually project tiny, coloured LED lights onto your wrist which can observe capillary action, identifying your BPM. Higher-end devices measure changes in the skin conductance that runs through the skin to get an idea of your nervous system activity.

A Fine Balance

One expert says that for most people for smartwatches, it's a "fine balance" - while the rapidly advancing tech could actually save lives, "spotting abnormalities before we feel unwell", it could also turn us device users into the "worried well".

He points out that the most advanced wearables can carry out tests like electrocardiograms (ECGs), which continuously monitor how normal the heart is. They can alert if someone is experiencing an irregular rhythm, where there is abnormal impulses in the heart causing an arrhythmia.

This does not mean someone is imminently going to suffer a heart attack, but it can give an early warning they might be more at risk of a blood clot in the long term.

But how to understand these readings is complex. The expert fears that as additional features are introduced, people may struggle to fully understand their data.

"I have some doubts that having the capacity to monitor so many metrics is such a positive development," he says.

A clinical psychologist focusing on patient behaviour agrees. A study into the effect of wearable tech on a set of heart condition patients suggested a minority of those who were given devices to monitor their condition experienced heightened worry and were "far more likely to use healthcare resources".

She observed a cycle with her patients - they saw a concerning reading on their watch. They grew concerned. Their heart rate increased. They got more worried. They looked a second time, and their heart rate rose further.

"If we see numbers about ourselves that we can't properly interpret then, understandably, we are going to become concerned," the psychologist says. "We check, we check again - it becomes a feedback loop."