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A sense of nervous excitement. Visible is the cold breath coming from my competitors as they perform the "starting line" wiggle on the start line.

A quick flick of the hips.

I'm participating in my local Saturday morning race and I'm focused. It's almost time...

Wait a second. I must sort my tracker. So does the runner beside me.

The person waiting expresses impatience. I'm not moving until… there! Connection established, I'm off.

During the scramble, it's challenging to find a arm without a wearable on it. And this isn't only us participants who use them.

This is a thriving, multi-billion pound sector. Names like Samsung Galaxy dominate, featuring an extensive array of diverse devices to cater to a spectrum of lifestyles. Based on how high tech the watch you select, price tags can range from an affordable sum to thousands of pounds.

"It drives me insane, it's impossible to stop checking."

"It provides solace… It acts as a supporter encouraging me."

"Stop telling me I've experienced a poor sleep."

A small sample of the reactions I've had from like-minded smartwatch wearers when I question what they their opinion is on theirs.

A Sea of Statistics

My thoughts on mine? At this moment, frustrating. It's reporting I'm off pace, making me wonder whether the overhead branches along my route are disrupting my GPS connection.

Millions of us attach these little devices onto our wrists and wear them 24/7, apparently unconcerned with the fact they're constantly monitoring us.

A distant memory are the days when we relied on them only to give us an idea of our daily steps. Now, they can measure our sleep patterns, blood pressure, oxygen saturation, our VO2 max.

It's difficult to find a health indicator they don't track.

But do they do what they advertise? And are the numbers we analyse a faithful picture of the truth? Do they enhance our daily wellness, or do the plethora of measurements and motivational messages just contribute to our sense of overwhelm?

Addiction or Aid?

"I find myself getting a bit preoccupied with mine," a wearer reveals.

While she appreciates how her device monitors her exercise, she finds some of its other functions "daunting" 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 kept telling her she was not being energetic enough. In a new phase, the watch frequently reports her she's had a poor sleep score.

"I am caring for a infant, it's unnecessary for me to be notified I'm tired," she says. "I know that only too well."

Couldn't she just remove it?

"I suppose I could, theoretically, but I'm in this push-pull dynamic with it," she explains. "I appreciate it for its fitness insights, I just wonder whether the additional features it can now do is possibly too much for me."

The Technology Behind the Tracking

Different brands of smartwatch has its own novel way of measuring your bodily functions and processing your data, but the most use optical sensors on the back of the watch.

They commonly shine tiny, coloured LED lights onto your skin which can detect pulsation, recording your heartbeat. More advanced devices detect changes in the skin conductance that passes over the skin to get an idea of your stress levels.

The Professional Viewpoint

A professor says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "fine balance" - while the continuously improving tech could actually prevent illness, "spotting abnormalities before we show symptoms", it could also turn us the tracked into the "anxious healthy".

He points out that newer wearables can carry out tests like electrocardiograms (ECGs), which regularly monitor how healthy the heart is. They can notify if someone is experiencing an irregular rhythm, where there is irregular impulses in the heart causing an uneven pulse.

This does not automatically signal someone is on the verge of a heart attack, but it can give an preliminary indication they might be more at risk of a blood clot in the future.

But how to understand these figures is complex. The expert worries that as further capabilities are added, people may struggle to fully understand their data.

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

A clinical psychologist specialising in cardiology agrees. A study into the influence of wearable tech on a set of cardiovascular patients suggested a noticeable percentage of those who were given devices to monitor their heart health experienced greater stress and were "more inclined to use medical services".

She identified a cycle with her patients - they noticed a alarming metric on their watch. They grew concerned. Their BPM rose. They got more worried. They re-examined the data, and their anxiety rose further.

"When people are presented with stats about ourselves that we lack context for then, naturally, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We monitor, we check again - it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."