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A sense of feeling of anticipation. Apparent is the frosty air emanating from my rivals as they execute the "about to run" shuffle on the starting line.

A quick twitch of the hips.

I'm participating in my local Saturday morning race and I mean business. The countdown begins...

Oh, hang on. I have to adjust my tracker. The same goes for the runner next to me.

The person behind us sighs. I'm not moving until… there! GPS ready, and I'm running.

In the mele, it's difficult to spot a person without a smartwatch on it. And it's not just us runners who rely on them.

This is a thriving, multi-billion dollar market. Companies like Apple Watch are prevalent, all offering an extensive range of diverse versions to suit a spectrum of budgets. Based on how advanced the model you select, prices can vary between a hundred pounds to thousands of pounds.

"It makes me crazy, I can't switch off."

"It reassures me… It's like a friend encouraging me."

"Stop telling me I've had a poor sleep."

Just some of the reactions I've received from other tracker enthusiasts when I inquire what they think of theirs.

A Sea of Statistics

My current opinion on mine? Right now, frustrating. It's telling me my speed is wrong, making me wonder whether the trees I'm running below are blocking my location tracking.

Countless individuals of us fasten these little gadgets onto our arms and wear them 24/7, ostensibly comfortable with the fact they're perpetually monitoring us.

A distant memory are the days when we depended on them solely to give us an idea of our daily steps. Today, they can track our sleep patterns, heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), our VO2 max.

It's a challenge to find a bodily function they don't track.

But do they do what they advertise? And are the data points we obsess over a accurate representation of reality? Do they improve our overall health, or do the multitude of measurements and cheerleading alerts just add to our everyday anxiety?

Addiction or Aid?

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

While she appreciates how her device records her workouts, she finds some of its other capabilities "overwhelming" at times - a feeling first discovered during a major life event.

Prior to discovering she could put it into a specific mode, her smartwatch constantly alerted her she was not being productive enough. Later on, the watch keeps telling her she's had a poor sleep score.

"I am caring for a infant, there's no point to be informed I'm tired," she says. "That fact is all too clearly."

Is it not possible to just take it off?

"It's possible, theoretically, but I'm in this love-hate relationship with it," she says. "I value it for its workout tracking, I sometimes question whether all the other things it can now do is perhaps excessive for me."

The Technology Behind the Tracking

Each model of smartwatch has its own proprietary way of measuring your health metrics and interpreting your data, but the most use optical sensors on the reverse of the watch.

They commonly project minute LED lights onto your skin which can monitor capillary action, recording your pulse rate. More advanced devices measure changes in the electrical current that passes over the skin to assess your stress levels.

Expert Perspectives

A data scientist says that in general for smartwatches, it's a "difficult line" - while the rapidly advancing tech could realistically save lives, "spotting abnormalities before we feel unwell", it could also turn us the tracked into the "anxious healthy".

He points out that some of the latest wearables can carry out tests like electrocardiograms (ECGs), which continuously monitor how healthy the heart is. They can flag if someone is experiencing atrial fibrillation (AF), where there is abnormal electrical activity in the heart causing an arrhythmia.

This does not mean someone is on the verge of a cardiac event, but it can give an advance notice they might be more susceptible of a heart problem in the long term.

But how to interpret these figures is complex. The expert worries that as more functions are introduced, people may struggle to fully understand their data.

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

A health researcher studying cardiology concurs. A study into the effect of wearable tech on a cohort of heart condition patients suggested a noticeable percentage of those who were given devices to monitor their condition experienced greater stress and were "far more likely to use healthcare resources".

She observed a pattern with her patients - they spotted a concerning reading on their watch. They became worried. Their pulse rose. They got even more concerned. They looked a second time, and their anxiety increased again.

"When people are presented with stats about ourselves that we lack context for then, understandably, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We check, we obsess - it becomes a feedback loop."