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An atmosphere of building tension. Apparent is the cold breath exhaled by my competitors as they execute the "about to run" shuffle on the start line.

A swift movement of the hips.

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

Wait a second. I must sort my tracker. The same goes for the guy next to me.

The person behind us expresses impatience. I won't start until… done! Signal acquired, and I'm running.

Amidst the crowd, it's difficult to spot a wrist without a wearable on it. And it's not just us athletes who use them.

This is a explosive, multi-billion dollar market. Brands like Samsung Galaxy dominate, featuring an wide selection of diverse models to cater to a variety of lifestyles. According to how high tech the model you choose, costs can vary between a hundred pounds to a significant investment.

"It drives me insane, it's impossible to stop checking."

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

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

A small sample of the responses people have shared from other tracker enthusiasts when I question what they think of theirs.

The Monitoring Conundrum

My thoughts on my own device? Currently, annoying. It's telling me my speed is wrong, causing me to question whether the trees I'm running below are blocking my satellite signal.

A vast number of us strap these small monitors onto our arms and wear them constantly, seemingly at ease with the fact they're constantly monitoring us.

Gone are the days when we depended on them solely to give us an idea of our pedometer reading. Currently, they can measure our sleep quality, blood pressure, glucose levels, our recovery score.

It's tricky to find a bodily function they aren't designed to measure.

But do they do what they advertise? And are the numbers we scrutinise a faithful picture of the truth? Do they boost our daily wellness, or do the avalanche of readings and motivational messages just contribute to our sense of overwhelm?

A Love-Hate Relationship

"I do get a bit fixated with mine," a wearer admits.

While she appreciates how her device monitors her exercise, she finds some of its other capabilities "overwhelming" at times - a feeling initially realised during a pregnancy.

Until she found out she could change its configuration, her smartwatch repeatedly informed her she was not being active enough. In a new phase, the watch keeps telling her she's had a poor sleep score.

"I've got a young baby, there's no point to be informed I'm tired," she says. "That fact is all too clearly."

Couldn't she just stop wearing it?

"It's possible, theoretically, but I have this push-pull dynamic with it," she continues. "I appreciate it for its exercise data, I just wonder whether the additional features it can now do is possibly excessive for me."

The Technology Behind the Tracking

Different brands of smartwatch has its own unique way of tracking your bodily functions and analysing your data, but the vast bulk use detectors on the back of the watch.

They commonly emit minute LED lights onto your wrist which can monitor blood flow, recording your BPM. More advanced devices detect changes in the bioimpedance that flows through the skin to gauge your nervous system activity.

The Professional Viewpoint

A data scientist says that in general for smartwatches, it's a "fine balance" - while the continuously improving tech could realistically save lives, "identifying issues before we notice anything", it could also turn us watch wearers into the "concerned but fine".

He points out that some of the latest wearables can carry out tests like medical-grade monitoring, which constantly monitor how normal the heart is. They can flag if someone is experiencing an irregular rhythm, where there is abnormal signals in the heart causing an irregular heartbeat.

This does not mean someone is on the verge of a heart attack, but it can give an advance notice they might be more at risk of a stroke in the future.

But how to interpret these numbers is complicated. The expert fears that as additional features are added, people may not be able to fully contextualise their data.

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

A clinical psychologist specialising in cardiology agrees. Her work into the impact of wearable tech on a set of individuals with health issues suggested a minority of those who were given devices to monitor their cardiac function experienced heightened worry and were "far more likely to use healthcare resources".

She identified a pattern with her patients - they saw a concerning reading on their watch. They felt anxious. Their heart rate increased. They got more worried. They looked a second time, and their heart rate increased again.

"Upon viewing data about ourselves that we lack context for then, of course, we are going to seek clarification," the psychologist says. "We look, we check again - it becomes a feedback loop."