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A sense of nervous excitement. I can see the frosty air coming from my rivals as they execute the "about to run" shuffle on the starting line.

A rapid flick of the hips.

I'm at my local 5km community parkrun and I'm serious. It's almost time...

Hold on. I must start my device. The same goes for the person next to me.

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

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

We're witnessing a thriving, multi-billion pound market. Names like Apple Watch lead the market, featuring an broad selection of various models to suit a variety of lifestyles. Depending on how feature-packed the watch you select, costs can vary between an affordable sum to a significant investment.

"It makes me crazy, I'm unable to stop checking."

"It reassures me… It acts as a companion guiding me."

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

A small sample of the reactions I've had from fellow device users when I inquire what they their opinion is on theirs.

The Monitoring Conundrum

My feelings on mine? Currently, annoying. It's reporting I'm not hitting my target, causing me to question whether the trees along my route are blocking my satellite signal.

Countless individuals of us fasten these small gadgets onto our arms and wear them 24/7, apparently at ease with the fact they're perpetually recording us.

Long past are the days when we used them solely to give us an idea of our pedometer reading. Now, they can analyse our nightly rest, stress levels, heart rate variability (HRV), our recovery score.

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

But can they do what they advertise? And are the data points we analyse a faithful picture of the truth? Do they improve our daily wellness, or do the multitude of readings and constant notifications just contribute to our sense of overwhelm?

A Love-Hate Relationship

"I find myself getting a a little fixated with mine," an individual confesses.

While she values how her device tracks her workouts, she finds some of its other features "overwhelming" at times - a feeling first discovered during a pregnancy.

Before she realised she could change its configuration, her smartwatch repeatedly informed her she was not being active enough. Later on, the watch frequently reports her she's had a bad night's sleep.

"I am caring for a young baby, it's unnecessary for me to be notified I've not slept," she says. "That fact is only too well."

Why doesn't she just take it off?

"It's possible, theoretically, but I've got this love-hate relationship with it," she explains. "I value it for its workout tracking, but I'm unsure whether the myriad other functions it can now do is perhaps too much for me."

Inside the Device

Different brands of smartwatch has its own unique way of monitoring your bodily functions and processing your data, but the majority use sensors on the underside of the watch.

They commonly shine tiny, coloured LED lights onto your skin which can monitor capillary action, identifying your pulse rate. Higher-end devices measure changes in the skin conductance that passes over the skin to get an idea of your nervous system activity.

The Professional Viewpoint

A professor says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "delicate equilibrium" - while the ever-evolving tech could realistically aid early diagnosis, "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 conduct tests like medical-grade monitoring, which constantly monitor how normal the heart is. They can alert if someone is experiencing an irregular rhythm, where there is erratic impulses in the heart causing an uneven pulse.

This does not mean someone is imminently going to suffer a heart attack, but it can give an preliminary indication they might be more at risk of a stroke in the long term.

But how to make sense of these figures is not straightforward. The expert worries that as additional features are added, people may struggle to fully contextualise their data.

"I remain sceptical that having the capacity to monitor so many things is such a positive development," he says.

A professor studying patient behaviour concurs. A study into the influence of wearable tech on a cohort of cardiovascular patients suggested a noticeable percentage of those who were given devices to monitor their cardiac function experienced heightened worry and were "more inclined to use healthcare resources".

She observed a pattern with her patients - they saw a alarming metric on their watch. They grew concerned. Their BPM went up. They got more worried. They looked a second time, and their anxiety increased again.

"If we see data about ourselves that we can't properly interpret then, naturally, we are going to become concerned," the psychologist says. "We check, we obsess - it becomes a vicious cycle."