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There's a building tension. Apparent is the frosty air emanating from my rivals as they do the "pre-race" jiggle on the starting line.

A quick movement of the hips.

I'm participating in my local Saturday morning race and I'm focused. It's almost time...

Oh, hang on. I must adjust my watch. The same goes for the guy next to me.

The person waiting expresses impatience. I won't start until… yes! GPS ready, I'm off.

During the scramble, it's hard to find a wrist without a wearable on it. And this isn't only us runners who rely on them.

We're witnessing a thriving, massive sector. Companies like Apple Watch dominate, featuring an wide range of diverse versions to fit a variety of needs. Based on how advanced the watch you select, prices can range from £100 to thousands of pounds.

"It drives me insane, I'm unable to switch off."

"It reassures me… It feels like a companion supporting me."

"Please don't notify me I've had a bad night's sleep."

A handful of the responses people have shared from like-minded tracker enthusiasts when I question what they their opinion is on theirs.

The Monitoring Conundrum

My feelings on mine? At this moment, irritating. It's reporting my speed is wrong, leading me to doubt whether the overhead branches I'm passing under are blocking my GPS connection.

Millions of us attach these small monitors onto our arms and wear them 24/7, seemingly comfortable with the fact they're perpetually tracking us.

A distant memory are the days when we relied on them only to give us an estimation of our daily steps. Now, they can analyse our sleep quality, heart rate, oxygen saturation, our body battery.

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

But do they do what they advertise? And are the numbers we obsess over a true reflection of reality? Do they improve our overall health, or do the plethora of metrics and cheerleading alerts just add to our daily stresses?

Addiction or Aid?

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

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

Prior to discovering she could change its configuration, her smartwatch kept telling her she was failing to be productive enough. Later on, the watch insists her she's had a bad night's sleep.

"I have a infant, I don't need to be informed I've not slept," she says. "That fact is all too clearly."

Couldn't she just remove it?

"I could, theoretically, but I've got this push-pull dynamic with it," she explains. "I love it for its workout tracking, I just wonder whether the myriad other functions it can now do is perhaps too much for me."

The Technology Behind the Tracking

Each model of smartwatch has its own novel way of tracking your health metrics and analysing your data, but the most use optical sensors on the underside of the watch.

They usually emit small, green LED lights onto your wrist which can detect blood flow, identifying your BPM. More advanced devices detect changes in the skin conductance that runs through the skin to assess your nervous system activity.

Expert Perspectives

A professor says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "difficult line" - while the continuously improving tech could potentially save lives, "spotting abnormalities before we show symptoms", it could also turn us watch wearers into the "worried well".

He points out that the most advanced wearables can conduct tests like heart rhythm analysis, which continuously monitor how stable the heart is. They can flag if someone is experiencing atrial fibrillation (AF), where there is irregular electrical activity in the heart causing an arrhythmia.

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

But how to make sense of these numbers is not straightforward. The expert fears that as more functions are added, people may struggle to fully comprehend their data.

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

A clinical psychologist studying wearable tech concurs. A study into the influence 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 "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 BPM went up. They got even more concerned. They re-examined the data, and their heart rate went up again.

"Upon viewing numbers about ourselves that we lack context for then, naturally, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We check, we re-check - it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."