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There's a nervous excitement. Apparent is the frosty air coming from my rivals as they perform the "pre-race" shuffle on the start line.

A rapid twitch of the hips.

I'm lined up for my local weekly parkrun event and I'm serious. It's almost time...

Oh, hang on. I need to sort my watch. So does the person beside me.

The person waiting expresses impatience. I won't start until… there! Connection established, away I go.

Amidst the crowd, it's difficult to spot a wrist without a smartwatch on it. And it's not just us participants who wear them.

It's a explosive, multi-billion pound industry. Names like Samsung Galaxy are prevalent, all offering an wide range of different devices to cater to a range of needs. Depending on how feature-packed the watch you choose, prices can vary between an affordable sum to thousands of pounds.

"It makes me crazy, I'm unable to switch off."

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

"Please don't notify me about a restless night."

A handful of the responses I've had from other smartwatch wearers when I ask what they feel about theirs.

The Data Dilemma

My feelings on my own device? Right now, irritating. It's telling me I'm not hitting my target, leading me to doubt whether the overhead branches along my route are blocking my satellite signal.

Millions of us strap these little gadgets onto our wrists and keep them on all day and night, apparently at ease with the fact they're continuously recording us.

Gone are the days when we relied on them solely to give us an rough count of our daily steps. Now, they can analyse our sleep patterns, heart rate, oxygen saturation, our recovery score.

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

But can they do what they say they do? And are the data points we scrutinise a faithful picture of reality? Do they improve our overall health, or do the plethora of readings and constant notifications just contribute to our daily stresses?

A Complicated Bond

"I do get a quite fixated with mine," one user confesses.

While she loves how her device tracks her workouts, she finds some of its other features "excessive" at times - a feeling initially realised during a pregnancy.

Prior to discovering she could put it into a specific mode, her smartwatch kept telling her she was not being energetic enough. Now, the watch insists her she's had a bad night's sleep.

"I've got a young baby, it's unnecessary for me to be notified I'm tired," she says. "I know that perfectly well."

Is it not possible to just take it off?

"I suppose I could, perhaps, but I'm in this complicated dynamic with it," she says. "I value it for its workout tracking, I sometimes question whether the additional features it can now do is possibly too much for me."

Inside the Device

Different brands of smartwatch has its own unique way of tracking your vitals and analysing your data, but the most use detectors on the underside of the watch.

They commonly project minute LED lights onto your skin which can observe pulsation, identifying your BPM. Sophisticated devices detect changes in the electrical current that passes over the skin to assess your nervous system activity.

A Fine Balance

One expert says that for most people for smartwatches, it's a "fine balance" - while the continuously improving tech could potentially save lives, "detecting disease before we show symptoms", it could also turn us device users into the "worried well".

He points out that newer wearables can carry out tests like electrocardiograms (ECGs), which constantly monitor how normal the heart is. They can flag if someone is experiencing atrial fibrillation (AF), where there is irregular impulses in the heart causing an irregular heartbeat.

This does not necessarily indicate someone is on the verge of a cardiac event, 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 find it hard to fully comprehend their data.

"I'm not entirely convinced that being able to monitor so much data is such a good idea," he says.

A professor focusing on cardiology echoes this sentiment. Her work into the influence of wearable tech on a cohort of heart condition patients suggested a noticeable percentage of those who were given devices to monitor their condition experienced greater stress and were "more inclined to use medical services".

She identified a vicious circle with her patients - they noticed a concerning reading on their watch. They grew concerned. Their BPM rose. They got even more concerned. They re-examined the data, and their anxiety increased again.

"When people are presented with stats about ourselves that we lack context for then, naturally, we are going to seek clarification," the psychologist says. "We look, we re-check - it becomes a vicious cycle."