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A sense of feeling of anticipation. Visible is the cold breath emanating from my fellow runners as they perform the "starting line" jiggle on the starting line.

A swift flick of the hips.

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

Wait a second. I must sort my tracker. So does the person beside me.

The person waiting expresses impatience. I refuse to go until… there! GPS ready, away I go.

In the mele, it's hard to find a wrist without a fitness tracker on it. And this extends beyond us athletes who wear them.

This is a thriving, multi-billion dollar sector. Brands like Samsung Galaxy are prevalent, each with an broad array of diverse devices to cater to a variety of lifestyles. Based on how feature-packed the device you choose, costs can range from a hundred pounds to a significant investment.

"I find it infuriating, I'm unable to switch off."

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

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

Just some of the reactions I've had from other tracker enthusiasts when I ask what they feel about theirs.

The Data Dilemma

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

Millions of us attach these compact monitors onto our arms and use them 24/7, apparently at ease with the fact they're continuously tracking us.

Long past are the days when we relied on them solely to give us an estimation of our step count. Now, they can track our sleep quality, stress levels, heart rate variability (HRV), our recovery score.

It's tricky to find a health indicator they fail to monitor.

But do they do what they say they do? And are the statistics we scrutinise a true reflection of reality? Do they enhance our mental and physical wellbeing, or do the multitude of metrics and constant notifications just add to our daily stresses?

A Complicated Bond

"I find myself getting a a little fixated with mine," one user reveals.

While she appreciates how her device monitors her runs, she finds some of its other features "daunting" at times - a feeling initially realised during a major life event.

Before she realised she could put it into a specific mode, her smartwatch constantly alerted her she was failing to be productive enough. In a new phase, the watch insists her she's had a poor sleep score.

"I've got a six-month old, there's no point to be told my sleep was poor," she says. "I'm acutely aware perfectly well."

Why doesn't she just stop wearing it?

"I suppose I could, perhaps, but I have this love-hate relationship with it," she explains. "I love it for its exercise data, but I'm unsure whether the additional features it can now do is possibly overkill for me."

How Do They Work?

Different brands of smartwatch has its own unique way of tracking your bodily functions and analysing your data, but the majority use sensors on the reverse of the watch.

They commonly emit minute LED lights onto your wrist which can observe capillary action, detecting your BPM. Higher-end devices measure changes in the bioimpedance that passes over the skin to assess your stress levels.

A Fine Balance

A data scientist says that in general for smartwatches, it's a "fine balance" - while the rapidly advancing tech could realistically save lives, "detecting disease before we show symptoms", it could also turn us device users into the "worried well".

He points out that some of the latest wearables can perform tests like heart rhythm analysis, which continuously monitor how stable the heart is. They can notify if someone is experiencing a heart arrhythmia, where there is abnormal impulses in the heart causing an uneven pulse.

This does not automatically signal someone is imminently going to suffer a cardiac event, but it can give an preliminary indication they might be more vulnerable of a heart problem in the future.

But how to make sense of these figures is not straightforward. The expert worries that as further capabilities are introduced, people may struggle to fully contextualise their data.

"I remain sceptical that having the capacity to monitor so many things is such a beneficial thing," he says.

A clinical psychologist specialising in wearable tech concurs. A study into the effect of wearable tech on a cohort of cardiovascular patients suggested a significant portion of those who were given devices to monitor their cardiac function experienced heightened worry and were "more inclined to use healthcare resources".

She observed a pattern with her patients - they spotted a alarming metric on their watch. They became worried. Their pulse increased. They got even more concerned. They re-examined the data, and their anxiety went up again.

"Upon viewing data about ourselves that we lack context for then, of course, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We check, we check again - it becomes a vicious cycle."