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An atmosphere of building tension. I can see the chilled vapour coming from my rivals as they do the "starting line" wiggle on the beginning point.

A rapid twitch of the hips.

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

Oh, hang on. I need to start my watch. The same goes for the runner alongside me.

The person waiting sighs. I won't start until… there! GPS ready, and I'm running.

During the scramble, it's difficult to find a person without a wearable on it. And it's not just us participants who rely on them.

We're witnessing a booming, massive industry. Brands like Samsung Galaxy dominate, each with an wide range of various models to fit a spectrum of budgets. Depending on how high tech the model you select, costs can start from a hundred pounds to a significant investment.

"It drives me insane, I can't relax."

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

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

Just some of the reactions people have shared from like-minded smartwatch wearers when I ask what they feel about theirs.

The Monitoring Conundrum

My thoughts on mine? Right now, irritating. It's indicating my speed is wrong, making me wonder whether the trees I'm passing under are blocking my satellite signal.

Countless individuals of us attach these small gadgets onto our wrists and use them constantly, apparently comfortable with the fact they're perpetually tracking us.

Long past are the days when we depended on them exclusively to give us an rough count of our pedometer reading. Now, they can measure our sleep patterns, heart rate, oxygen saturation, our recovery score.

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

But do they do what they say they do? And are the data points we analyse a accurate representation of our actual health? Do they improve our daily wellness, or do the avalanche of measurements and constant notifications just add to our sense of overwhelm?

Addiction or Aid?

"I become a a little obsessed with mine," one user admits.

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

Until she found out she could change its configuration, her smartwatch constantly alerted her she was not being productive enough. In a new phase, the watch frequently reports her she's had a poor sleep score.

"I have a young baby, it's unnecessary for me to be notified my sleep was poor," she says. "I'm acutely aware only too well."

Is it not possible to just remove it?

"I suppose I could, perhaps, but I've got this complicated dynamic with it," she says. "I love it for its workout tracking, I just wonder whether the additional features it can now do is perhaps too much for me."

Inside the Device

Each model of smartwatch has its own proprietary way of monitoring your vitals and processing your data, but the most use optical sensors on the reverse of the watch.

They usually emit minute LED lights onto your wrist which can observe capillary action, detecting your pulse rate. More advanced devices analyse changes in the bioimpedance that runs through the skin to get an idea of your nervous system activity.

The Professional Viewpoint

One expert says that for most people for smartwatches, it's a "difficult line" - while the rapidly advancing tech could realistically save lives, "identifying issues before we feel unwell", it could also turn us device users into the "worried well".

He points out that some of the latest wearables can carry out tests like medical-grade monitoring, which regularly monitor how healthy the heart is. They can flag if someone is experiencing a heart arrhythmia, where there is abnormal electrical activity in the heart causing an irregular heartbeat.

This does not necessarily indicate someone is imminently going to suffer 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 make sense of these figures is not straightforward. The expert worries that as further capabilities are added, people may not be able to fully contextualise their data.

"I remain sceptical that being able to monitor so much data is such a beneficial thing," he says.

A health researcher focusing on wearable tech agrees. Her work into the influence of wearable tech on a cohort of cardiovascular patients suggested a minority of those who were given devices to monitor their condition experienced heightened worry and were "more inclined to use healthcare resources".

She identified a cycle with her patients - they spotted a concerning reading on their watch. They felt anxious. Their pulse rose. They got more worried. They checked again, and their reading increased again.

"When people are presented with numbers about ourselves that we don't really understand then, understandably, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We look, we re-check - it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."