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A sense of feeling of anticipation. Apparent is the chilled vapour exhaled by my rivals as they execute the "starting line" wiggle on the start line.

A swift movement of the hips.

I'm at my local Saturday morning race and I mean business. It's almost time...

Oh, hang on. I have to adjust my device. As does the runner beside me.

The person in the line tuts. I'm not moving until… there! Signal acquired, I'm off.

During the scramble, it's hard to find a person without a fitness tracker on it. And this isn't only us participants who rely on them.

It's a booming, multi-billion dollar market. Brands like Garmin dominate, featuring an broad selection of different models to cater to a spectrum of budgets. Depending on how advanced the watch you choose, costs can start from a hundred pounds to thousands of pounds.

"It makes me crazy, I can't stop checking."

"It comforts me… It acts as a companion encouraging me."

"Please don't notify me about a bad night's sleep."

Just some of the reactions I've had from other smartwatch wearers when I inquire what they their opinion is on theirs.

The Monitoring Conundrum

My thoughts on mine? At this moment, annoying. It's indicating my speed is wrong, making me wonder whether the overhead branches along my route are disrupting my location tracking.

Countless individuals of us attach these little gadgets onto our arms and use them 24/7, ostensibly at ease with the fact they're continuously monitoring us.

Long past are the days when we depended on them only to give us an idea of our daily steps. Today, they can analyse our sleep quality, blood pressure, oxygen saturation, our body battery.

It's difficult to find a physical metric they don't track.

But can they do what they claim to do? And are the numbers we scrutinise a faithful picture of our actual health? Do they boost our mental and physical wellbeing, or do the avalanche of metrics and cheerleading alerts just contribute to our sense of overwhelm?

Addiction or Aid?

"I find myself getting a quite preoccupied with mine," one user admits.

While she appreciates how her device records her workouts, she finds some of its other functions "overwhelming" at times - a feeling initially realised during a significant period.

Before she realised she could change its configuration, her smartwatch kept telling her she was failing to be active enough. In a new phase, the watch frequently reports her she's had a bad night's sleep.

"I've got a young baby, there's no point to be notified I'm tired," she says. "I'm acutely aware perfectly well."

Is it not possible to just take it off?

"I suppose I could, I suppose, but I have this push-pull dynamic with it," she says. "I love it for its exercise data, but I'm unsure whether the myriad other functions it can now do is maybe too much for me."

How Do They Work?

Each model of smartwatch has its own novel way of measuring your bodily functions and processing your data, but the vast bulk use optical sensors on the back of the watch.

They typically shine minute LED lights onto your skin which can monitor capillary action, identifying your heartbeat. More advanced devices analyse changes in the electrical current that flows through the skin to get an idea of your stress levels.

The Professional Viewpoint

One expert says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "delicate equilibrium" - while the continuously improving tech could realistically save lives, "spotting abnormalities 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 conduct tests like medical-grade monitoring, which continuously monitor how stable the heart is. They can alert if someone is experiencing atrial fibrillation (AF), where there is abnormal signals in the heart causing an irregular heartbeat.

This does not automatically signal someone is about to have a cardiac event, but it can give an early warning they might be more vulnerable of a heart problem in the years to come.

But how to understand these figures is not straightforward. The expert concerns that as additional features are incorporated, people may not be able to fully comprehend their data.

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

A professor studying patient behaviour concurs. Her work into the effect of wearable tech on a set of cardiovascular patients suggested a significant portion of those who were given devices to monitor their heart health experienced heightened worry and were "more inclined to use healthcare resources".

She noted a pattern with her patients - they spotted a concerning reading on their watch. They became worried. Their heart rate rose. They got more worried. They re-examined the data, and their heart rate went up again.

"Upon viewing numbers about ourselves that we can't properly interpret then, naturally, we are going to seek clarification," the psychologist says. "We check, we re-check - it becomes a vicious cycle."