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A sense of nervous excitement. I can see the cold breath emanating from my competitors as they execute the "pre-race" shuffle on the beginning point.

A rapid flick of the hips.

I'm participating in my local 5km community parkrun and I'm serious. The countdown begins...

Wait a second. I have to sort my device. As does the person next to me.

The person in the line tuts. I won't start until… there! Signal acquired, I'm off.

During the scramble, it's challenging to find a person without a wearable on it. And this extends beyond us athletes who rely on them.

We're witnessing a explosive, massive industry. Companies like Apple Watch dominate, featuring an wide array of different devices to fit a spectrum of budgets. According to how feature-packed the model you go for, prices can vary between a hundred pounds to a small fortune.

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

"It provides solace… It acts as a friend supporting me."

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

A small sample of the responses I've received from like-minded device users when I question what they their opinion is on theirs.

A Sea of Statistics

My current opinion on my own device? Right now, frustrating. It's reporting my speed is wrong, leading me to doubt whether the foliage I'm running below are blocking my satellite signal.

Countless individuals of us strap these little monitors onto our wrists and wear them constantly, seemingly at ease with the fact they're constantly recording us.

A distant memory are the days when we relied on them exclusively to give us an idea of our step count. Today, they can measure our sleep quality, stress levels, glucose levels, our VO2 max.

It's difficult to find a physical metric they aren't designed to measure.

But do they do what they claim to do? And are the statistics we scrutinise a faithful picture of our actual health? Do they enhance our daily wellness, or do the plethora of metrics and cheerleading alerts just increase our sense of overwhelm?

A Complicated Bond

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

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

Prior to discovering she could change its configuration, her smartwatch kept telling her she was failing to be energetic enough. Later on, 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 notified I'm tired," she says. "I'm acutely aware perfectly well."

Why doesn't she just take it off?

"I suppose I could, I suppose, but I'm in this love-hate relationship with it," she says. "I appreciate it for its workout tracking, I sometimes question whether all the other things it can now do is perhaps overkill for me."

Inside the Device

Each model of smartwatch has its own novel way of measuring your bodily functions and analysing your data, but the majority use sensors on the reverse of the watch.

They typically project tiny, coloured LED lights onto your skin which can detect capillary action, identifying your BPM. Sophisticated devices measure changes in the skin conductance that runs through the skin to assess your stress levels.

The Professional Viewpoint

A data scientist says that in general for smartwatches, it's a "difficult line" - while the rapidly advancing tech could actually aid early diagnosis, "spotting abnormalities before we show symptoms", it could also turn us the tracked into the "concerned but fine".

He points out that the most advanced wearables can carry out 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 erratic impulses in the heart causing an arrhythmia.

This does not automatically signal someone is on the verge of a cardiac event, but it can give an early warning they might be more vulnerable of a blood clot in the future.

But how to understand these figures is not straightforward. The expert fears that as more functions are incorporated, people may struggle to fully understand their data.

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

A health researcher focusing on wearable tech echoes this sentiment. Research into the impact of wearable tech on a set of individuals with health issues suggested a minority of those who were given devices to monitor their condition experienced heightened worry and were "had a higher tendency to use healthcare resources".

She noted a cycle with her patients - they saw a concerning reading on their watch. They became worried. Their BPM rose. They got increasingly anxious. They looked a second time, and their heart rate went up again.

"When people are presented with numbers about ourselves that we don't really understand then, of course, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We look, we check again - it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."