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An atmosphere of feeling of anticipation. Apparent is the frosty air exhaled by my rivals as they do the "pre-race" jiggle on the starting line.

A quick twitch of the hips.

I'm at my local Saturday morning race and I mean business. It's almost time...

Wait a second. I need to sort my watch. As does the runner next to me.

The person behind us sighs. I refuse to go until… yes! Connection established, away I go.

Amidst the crowd, it's challenging to see a wrist without a wearable on it. And this extends beyond us participants who rely on them.

It's a explosive, massive market. Brands like Samsung Galaxy are prevalent, all offering an extensive array of different versions to suit a spectrum of lifestyles. Depending on how feature-packed the watch you choose, price tags can vary between £100 to a significant investment.

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

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

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

A small sample of the responses people have shared from fellow smartwatch wearers when I ask what they think of theirs.

A Sea of Statistics

My thoughts on mine? Currently, annoying. It's reporting I'm off pace, leading me to doubt whether the overhead branches I'm running below are disrupting my location tracking.

Millions of us attach these little monitors onto our arms and use them all day and night, apparently at ease with the fact they're continuously monitoring us.

Gone are the days when we relied on them only to give us an estimation of our step count. Now, they can analyse our sleep patterns, heart rate, glucose levels, our recovery score.

It's tricky to find a physical metric they fail to monitor.

But are they able to do what they claim to do? And are the statistics we obsess over a accurate representation of our actual health? Do they enhance our mental and physical wellbeing, or do the multitude of measurements and constant notifications just add to our everyday anxiety?

A Love-Hate Relationship

"I do get a bit obsessed with mine," an individual reveals.

While she appreciates how her device tracks her runs, she finds some of its other features "daunting" at times - a feeling first discovered during a significant period.

Until she found out she could put it into a specific mode, her smartwatch kept telling her she was not being active enough. Later on, the watch frequently reports her she's had a poor sleep score.

"I've got a infant, there's no point to be told my sleep was poor," she says. "I'm acutely aware all too clearly."

Why doesn't she just take it off?

"I suppose I could, perhaps, but I have this complicated dynamic with it," she explains. "I value it for its exercise data, but I'm unsure whether the additional features it can now do is possibly excessive for me."

Inside the Device

Every device of smartwatch has its own unique way of measuring your health metrics and interpreting your data, but the vast bulk use detectors on the reverse of the watch.

They usually shine minute LED lights onto your wrist which can monitor blood flow, identifying your heartbeat. Higher-end devices detect changes in the skin conductance that flows through the skin to assess your stress levels.

A Fine Balance

A professor says that for most people for smartwatches, it's a "difficult line" - while the continuously improving tech could actually 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 conduct tests like electrocardiograms (ECGs), which constantly monitor how healthy the heart is. They can alert if someone is experiencing an irregular rhythm, where there is irregular signals in the heart causing an uneven pulse.

This does not mean someone is on the verge of a cardiac event, but it can give an preliminary indication they might be more vulnerable of a heart problem in the years to come.

But how to interpret these figures is complicated. The expert concerns that as more functions are incorporated, people may find it hard to fully comprehend their data.

"I'm not entirely convinced that the ability to monitor so many metrics is such a good idea," he says.

A professor studying wearable tech echoes this sentiment. A study into the impact of wearable tech on a specific group of cardiovascular patients suggested a minority of those who were given devices to monitor their condition experienced increased anxiety and were "more inclined to use healthcare resources".

She identified a vicious circle with her patients - they spotted a alarming metric on their watch. They became worried. Their BPM went up. They got even more concerned. They re-examined the data, and their reading increased again.

"When people are presented with stats about ourselves that we can't properly interpret then, naturally, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We look, we re-check - it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."