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A sense of building tension. I can see the frosty air coming from my fellow runners as they execute the "starting line" wiggle on the start line.

A swift movement of the hips.

I'm at my local 5km community parkrun and I'm focused. Three, two, one...

Hold on. I have to sort my watch. As does the guy alongside me.

The person waiting tuts. I'm not moving until… yes! Connection established, away I go.

In the mele, it's hard to find a arm without a wearable on it. And this isn't only us runners who wear them.

We're witnessing a explosive, multi-billion pound market. Names like Samsung Galaxy dominate, all offering an broad array of different devices to cater to a spectrum of lifestyles. Depending on how high tech the device you go for, price tags can start from a hundred pounds to thousands of pounds.

"It makes me crazy, it's impossible to relax."

"It provides solace… It's like a friend guiding me."

"Stop telling me I've experienced a bad night's sleep."

Just some of the responses people have shared from fellow smartwatch wearers when I ask what they their opinion is on theirs.

The Monitoring Conundrum

My feelings on mine? At this moment, frustrating. It's indicating my speed is wrong, making me wonder whether the trees along my route are blocking my GPS connection.

A vast number of us fasten these small gadgets onto our arms and use them constantly, ostensibly at ease with the fact they're constantly monitoring us.

Long past are the days when we used them only to give us an rough count of our step count. Now, they can track our sleep patterns, stress levels, glucose levels, our body battery.

It's a challenge to find a bodily function they don't track.

But can they do what they advertise? And are the numbers we analyse a faithful picture of our actual health? Do they boost our mental and physical wellbeing, or do the avalanche of metrics and constant notifications just add to our sense of overwhelm?

A Love-Hate Relationship

"I do get a a little fixated with mine," one user reveals.

While she values how her device records her workouts, she finds some of its other capabilities "excessive" at times - a feeling initially realised during a significant period.

Prior to discovering she could adjust the settings, her smartwatch repeatedly informed her she was not being productive enough. Now, the watch insists her she's had a poor sleep score.

"I have a six-month old, it's unnecessary for me to be informed I've not slept," she says. "I know that all too clearly."

Is it not possible to just stop wearing it?

"It's possible, I suppose, but I'm in this push-pull dynamic with it," she says. "I love it for its fitness insights, I just wonder whether the myriad other functions it can now do is perhaps excessive for me."

Inside the Device

Different brands of smartwatch has its own novel way of tracking your vitals and analysing your data, but the majority use optical sensors on the back of the watch.

They typically shine tiny, coloured LED lights onto your skin which can observe capillary action, identifying your heartbeat. Sophisticated devices analyse changes in the electrical current that flows through the skin to get an idea of your recovery state.

Expert Perspectives

A professor says that for most people for smartwatches, it's a "fine balance" - while the ever-evolving tech could actually save lives, "detecting disease before we show symptoms", it could also turn us watch wearers into the "anxious healthy".

He points out that some of the latest wearables can carry out tests like electrocardiograms (ECGs), which constantly monitor how normal the heart is. They can flag if someone is experiencing a heart arrhythmia, where there is irregular electrical activity in the heart causing an irregular heartbeat.

This does not necessarily indicate someone is imminently going to suffer a heart attack, but it can give an preliminary indication they might be more susceptible of a stroke in the years to come.

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

"I remain sceptical that being able to monitor so many metrics is such a good idea," he says.

A health researcher focusing on cardiology concurs. Research into the influence of wearable tech on a cohort of individuals with health issues suggested a minority of those who were given devices to monitor their heart health experienced increased anxiety and were "more inclined to use doctor's time".

She observed a vicious circle with her patients - they noticed a worrying figure on their watch. They felt anxious. Their heart rate went up. They got increasingly anxious. They checked again, and their reading rose further.

"Upon viewing data about ourselves that we can't properly interpret then, understandably, we are going to become concerned," the psychologist says. "We look, we check again - it becomes a vicious cycle."