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There's a feeling of anticipation. Visible is the cold breath coming from my rivals as they do the "pre-race" jiggle on the start line.

A quick flick of the hips.

I'm lined up for my local Saturday morning race and I mean business. The countdown begins...

Hold on. I need to adjust my tracker. So does the person beside me.

The person behind us sighs. I refuse to go until… yes! GPS ready, I'm off.

In the mele, it's challenging to see a person without a smartwatch on it. And it's not just us athletes who use them.

It's a explosive, multi-billion pound sector. Companies like Samsung Galaxy are prevalent, featuring an extensive range of various models to suit a spectrum of lifestyles. Depending on how advanced the model you go for, price tags can range from £100 to a small fortune.

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

"It comforts me… It's like a companion guiding me."

"Please don't notify me about a restless night."

A handful of the reactions people have shared from fellow tracker enthusiasts when I ask what they feel about theirs.

The Monitoring Conundrum

My thoughts on my own device? Currently, frustrating. It's indicating I'm off pace, causing me to question whether the trees I'm passing under are interfering with my GPS connection.

A vast number of us strap these small devices onto our arms and use them all day and night, seemingly unconcerned with the fact they're continuously tracking us.

Gone are the days when we depended on them only to give us an idea of our pedometer reading. Currently, they can track our nightly rest, blood pressure, glucose levels, our body battery.

It's tricky to find a health indicator they don't track.

But can they do what they claim to do? And are the statistics we obsess over a faithful picture of our actual health? Do they improve our overall health, or do the avalanche of measurements and motivational messages just contribute to our everyday anxiety?

Addiction or Aid?

"I become a quite preoccupied with mine," an individual reveals.

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 repeatedly informed her she was being insufficiently energetic enough. Later on, the watch frequently reports her she's had a poor sleep score.

"I am caring for a young baby, I don't need to be informed I'm tired," she says. "That fact is only too well."

Why doesn't she just stop wearing it?

"I could, I suppose, but I've got this push-pull dynamic with it," she explains. "I appreciate it for its fitness insights, but I'm unsure whether all the other things it can now do is possibly excessive for me."

Inside the Device

Different brands of smartwatch has its own novel way of measuring your health metrics and processing your data, but the majority use optical sensors on the reverse of the watch.

They commonly emit small, green LED lights onto your arm which can monitor capillary action, recording your BPM. Higher-end devices detect changes in the electrical current that flows through the skin to gauge your nervous system activity.

Expert Perspectives

One expert says that in general for smartwatches, it's a "delicate equilibrium" - while the continuously improving tech could potentially save lives, "detecting disease before we feel unwell", it could also turn us watch wearers into the "worried well".

He points out that some of the latest wearables can conduct tests like medical-grade monitoring, which regularly monitor how stable the heart is. They can alert if someone is experiencing atrial fibrillation (AF), where there is abnormal impulses in the heart causing an irregular heartbeat.

This does not automatically signal someone is imminently going to suffer a cardiac event, but it can give an advance notice they might be more susceptible of a stroke in the years to come.

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

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

A professor studying cardiology agrees. Her work into the influence of wearable tech on a set of heart condition patients suggested a noticeable percentage of those who were given devices to monitor their cardiac function experienced increased anxiety and were "had a higher tendency to use doctor's time".

She noted a vicious circle with her patients - they saw a worrying figure on their watch. They grew concerned. Their heart rate increased. They got even more concerned. They re-examined the data, and their anxiety rose further.

"When people are presented with stats about ourselves that we lack context for then, of course, we are going to become concerned," the psychologist says. "We look, we check again - it becomes a vicious cycle."