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A sense of building tension. I can see the chilled vapour coming from my rivals as they perform the "pre-race" shuffle on the start line.

A rapid twitch of the hips.

I'm participating in my local 5km community parkrun and I mean business. Three, two, one...

Hold on. I must sort my tracker. As does the person next to me.

The person in the line tuts. I'm not moving until… done! GPS ready, and I'm running.

Amidst the crowd, it's hard to find a arm without a smartwatch on it. And this extends beyond us athletes who use them.

We're witnessing a explosive, multi-billion pound market. Companies like Samsung Galaxy dominate, all offering an extensive array of diverse versions to suit a variety of needs. Depending on how feature-packed the device you select, prices can start from £100 to thousands of pounds.

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

"It provides solace… It feels like a friend supporting me."

"I wish it wouldn't say about a poor sleep."

A small sample of the reactions I've received from fellow tracker enthusiasts when I inquire what they their opinion is on theirs.

The Monitoring Conundrum

My feelings on my own device? Right now, annoying. It's indicating my speed is wrong, causing me to question whether the overhead branches I'm passing under are blocking my location tracking.

Millions of us fasten these little gadgets onto our arms and keep them on 24/7, ostensibly at ease with the fact they're continuously tracking us.

Gone are the days when we depended on them solely to give us an idea of our step count. Currently, they can track our nightly rest, heart rate, oxygen saturation, our VO2 max.

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

But do they do what they say they do? And are the statistics we analyse a accurate representation of our actual health? Do they enhance our daily wellness, or do the plethora of metrics and cheerleading alerts just contribute to our sense of overwhelm?

A Complicated Bond

"I do get a bit preoccupied with mine," a wearer admits.

While she loves how her device records her workouts, she finds some of its other capabilities "daunting" at times - a feeling that became apparent during a major life event.

Before she realised she could change its configuration, her smartwatch kept telling her she was failing to be productive enough. Now, the watch insists her she's had a restless night.

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

Why doesn't she just stop wearing it?

"I could, theoretically, but I've got this love-hate relationship with it," she continues. "I love it for its exercise data, I sometimes question whether all the other things it can now do is possibly excessive for me."

The Technology Behind the Tracking

Every device of smartwatch has its own unique way of measuring your bodily functions and analysing your data, but the most use sensors on the back of the watch.

They typically project tiny, coloured LED lights onto your wrist which can detect capillary action, identifying 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 "delicate equilibrium" - while the continuously improving tech could realistically prevent illness, "spotting abnormalities before we show symptoms", it could also turn us the tracked into the "anxious healthy".

He points out that the most advanced wearables can carry out tests like medical-grade monitoring, which constantly monitor how healthy the heart is. They can alert if someone is experiencing atrial fibrillation (AF), where there is abnormal electrical activity in the heart causing an irregular heartbeat.

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

But how to interpret these numbers is complicated. The expert concerns that as further capabilities are incorporated, people may struggle to fully contextualise their data.

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

A professor focusing on patient behaviour agrees. Her work into the impact 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 greater stress and were "more inclined to use doctor's time".

She observed a cycle with her patients - they saw a concerning reading on their watch. They became worried. Their BPM increased. They got increasingly anxious. They checked again, and their anxiety rose further.

"If we see numbers about ourselves that we lack context for then, of course, we are going to seek clarification," the psychologist says. "We monitor, we re-check - it becomes a vicious cycle."