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An atmosphere of building tension. Visible is the cold breath exhaled by my competitors as they perform the "about to run" shuffle on the beginning point.

A rapid twitch of the hips.

I'm lined up for my local Saturday morning race and I'm serious. It's almost time...

Wait a second. I must adjust my device. The same goes for the guy beside me.

The person waiting tuts. I won't start until… done! Connection established, I'm off.

During the scramble, it's challenging to spot a person without a fitness tracker on it. And it's not just us runners who wear them.

It's a explosive, multi-billion dollar market. Brands like Garmin lead the market, all offering an wide selection of diverse versions to fit a range of needs. According to how feature-packed the watch you select, prices can range from an affordable sum to thousands of pounds.

"It makes me crazy, it's impossible to switch off."

"It comforts me… It feels like a friend supporting me."

"I wish it wouldn't say I've had a restless night."

A small sample of the responses people have shared from fellow device users when I ask what they their opinion is on theirs.

A Sea of Statistics

My current opinion on mine? Right now, annoying. It's reporting I'm off pace, making me wonder whether the trees I'm running below are interfering with my GPS connection.

Countless individuals of us fasten these little monitors onto our arms and keep them on all day and night, seemingly unconcerned with the fact they're constantly monitoring us.

Gone are the days when we relied on them solely to give us an rough count of our daily steps. Today, they can measure our nightly rest, heart rate, oxygen saturation, our recovery score.

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

But are they able to do what they say they do? And are the statistics we obsess over a true reflection of the truth? Do they improve our mental and physical wellbeing, or do the avalanche of readings and motivational messages just contribute to our daily stresses?

A Love-Hate Relationship

"I become a a little fixated with mine," one user admits.

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

Prior to discovering she could adjust the settings, her smartwatch repeatedly informed her she was not being energetic enough. In a new phase, the watch keeps telling her she's had a poor sleep score.

"I have a infant, it's unnecessary for me to be told I've not slept," she says. "I'm acutely aware only too well."

Is it not possible to just stop wearing it?

"I suppose I could, theoretically, but I've got this love-hate relationship with it," she continues. "I appreciate it for its fitness insights, I just wonder whether all the other things it can now do is possibly overkill for me."

How Do They Work?

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

They commonly shine minute LED lights onto your arm which can detect capillary action, identifying your pulse rate. More advanced devices detect changes in the bioimpedance that passes over the skin to gauge your stress levels.

A Fine Balance

A professor says that in general for smartwatches, it's a "fine balance" - while the rapidly advancing tech could actually prevent illness, "detecting disease before we show symptoms", it could also turn us the tracked into the "anxious healthy".

He points out that some of the latest wearables can perform tests like heart rhythm analysis, which regularly monitor how normal the heart is. They can flag if someone is experiencing atrial fibrillation (AF), where there is erratic electrical activity in the heart causing an irregular heartbeat.

This does not necessarily indicate someone is about to have a cardiac event, but it can give an early warning they might be more at risk of a blood clot in the future.

But how to make sense of these readings is complex. The expert concerns that as more functions are introduced, people may find it hard to fully comprehend their data.

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

A professor studying wearable tech concurs. A study into the effect of wearable tech on a cohort of individuals with health issues suggested a noticeable percentage of those who were given devices to monitor their cardiac function experienced greater stress and were "far more likely to use doctor's time".

She noted a pattern with her patients - they saw a concerning reading on their watch. They grew concerned. Their heart rate increased. They got even more concerned. They looked a second time, and their heart rate went up again.

"Upon viewing stats about ourselves that we lack context for then, understandably, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We look, we obsess - it becomes a feedback loop."