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An atmosphere of feeling of anticipation. Apparent is the frosty air coming from my competitors as they do the "starting line" wiggle on the starting line.

A quick movement of the hips.

I'm at my local 5km community parkrun and I mean business. It's almost time...

Hold on. I must sort my device. So does the person next to me.

The person in the line tuts. I won't start until… done! Connection established, I'm off.

During the scramble, it's challenging to find a arm without a fitness tracker on it. And this isn't only us athletes who wear them.

It's a thriving, massive sector. Brands like Garmin are prevalent, each with an wide selection of diverse models to cater to a variety of lifestyles. Based on how feature-packed the watch you choose, price tags can range from £100 to a significant investment.

"I find it infuriating, it's impossible to relax."

"It comforts me… It's like a companion encouraging me."

"I wish it wouldn't say about a bad night's sleep."

A small sample of the comments I've received from other tracker enthusiasts when I inquire what they think of theirs.

The Monitoring Conundrum

My thoughts on my own device? At this moment, annoying. It's telling me I'm off pace, causing me to question whether the overhead branches I'm passing under are disrupting my GPS connection.

Millions of us strap these small monitors onto our arms and use them constantly, seemingly at ease with the fact they're perpetually recording us.

Gone are the days when we depended on them only to give us an estimation of our step count. Today, they can track our nightly rest, stress levels, heart rate variability (HRV), our VO2 max.

It's tricky to find a bodily function they fail to monitor.

But can they do what they say they do? And are the data points we scrutinise a accurate representation of our actual health? Do they boost our daily wellness, or do the avalanche of measurements and constant notifications just increase our everyday anxiety?

A Love-Hate Relationship

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

While she values how her device records her runs, she finds some of its other features "overwhelming" at times - a feeling first discovered during a significant period.

Until she found out she could adjust the settings, her smartwatch constantly alerted her she was failing to be active enough. In a new phase, the watch keeps telling her she's had a restless night.

"I have a young baby, I don't need to be notified I'm tired," she says. "I know that only too well."

Couldn't she just take it off?

"It's possible, theoretically, but I have this push-pull dynamic with it," she says. "I appreciate it for its exercise data, but I'm unsure whether the additional features it can now do is possibly excessive for me."

Inside the Device

Every device of smartwatch has its own novel way of measuring your vitals and interpreting your data, but the vast bulk use detectors on the underside of the watch.

They commonly project small, green LED lights onto your wrist which can monitor capillary action, recording your heartbeat. Sophisticated devices measure changes in the electrical current that passes over the skin to gauge your nervous system activity.

Expert Perspectives

A professor says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "delicate equilibrium" - while the ever-evolving tech could potentially save lives, "spotting abnormalities before we notice anything", it could also turn us watch wearers into the "worried well".

He points out that newer wearables can conduct tests like medical-grade monitoring, which constantly monitor how normal the heart is. They can alert if someone is experiencing an irregular rhythm, where there is erratic impulses in the heart causing an irregular heartbeat.

This does not automatically signal someone is on the verge of a cardiac event, but it can give an preliminary indication they might be more susceptible of a heart problem in the future.

But how to understand these readings is complex. The expert fears that as more functions are added, people may struggle to fully comprehend their data.

"I'm not entirely convinced that having the capacity to monitor so many things is such a beneficial thing," he says.

A professor specialising in wearable tech agrees. Her work into the effect of wearable tech on a specific group of individuals with health issues suggested a noticeable percentage of those who were given devices to monitor their condition experienced heightened worry and were "far more likely to use healthcare resources".

She observed a pattern with her patients - they saw a worrying figure on their watch. They became worried. Their heart rate rose. They got increasingly anxious. They re-examined the data, and their reading went up again.

"If we see stats about ourselves that we don't really understand then, of course, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We check, we check again - it becomes a feedback loop."