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There's a building tension. I can see the chilled vapour exhaled by my rivals as they perform the "pre-race" wiggle on the beginning point.

A swift twitch of the hips.

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

Wait a second. I must start my tracker. The same goes for the runner alongside me.

The person waiting tuts. I'm not moving until… there! Connection established, away I go.

Amidst the crowd, it's difficult to find a arm without a smartwatch on it. And this isn't only us runners who wear them.

We're witnessing a explosive, multi-billion pound market. Names like Samsung Galaxy lead the market, all offering an wide range of diverse versions to fit a range of lifestyles. Depending on how high tech the watch you select, price tags can vary between £100 to a significant investment.

"I find it infuriating, I can't switch off."

"It reassures me… It acts as a supporter supporting me."

"Stop telling me about a restless night."

A handful of the reactions people have shared from other smartwatch wearers when I question what they feel about theirs.

The Data Dilemma

My feelings on my own device? At this moment, frustrating. It's reporting I'm off pace, making me wonder whether the foliage I'm running below are disrupting my location tracking.

Millions of us fasten these compact gadgets onto our arms and use them constantly, ostensibly comfortable with the fact they're perpetually recording us.

Long past are the days when we used them exclusively to give us an idea of our pedometer reading. Currently, they can analyse our sleep patterns, stress levels, glucose levels, our recovery score.

It's difficult to find a health indicator they aren't designed to measure.

But can they do what they say they do? And are the data points we scrutinise a true reflection of our actual health? Do they enhance our overall health, or do the plethora of measurements and cheerleading alerts just increase our everyday anxiety?

A Complicated Bond

"I find myself getting a quite fixated with mine," an individual admits.

While she values how her device records her exercise, she finds some of its other functions "daunting" at times - a feeling that became apparent during a pregnancy.

Before she realised she could adjust the settings, her smartwatch constantly alerted her she was failing to be active enough. Later on, the watch frequently reports her she's had a poor sleep score.

"I have a young baby, there's no point to be notified I'm tired," she says. "I'm acutely aware all too clearly."

Is it not possible to just remove it?

"I suppose I could, perhaps, but I've got this complicated dynamic with it," she says. "I value it for its exercise data, I just wonder whether the additional features it can now do is maybe too much for me."

The Technology Behind the Tracking

Different brands of smartwatch has its own novel way of tracking your bodily functions and interpreting your data, but the majority use optical sensors on the underside of the watch.

They typically project small, green LED lights onto your wrist which can observe capillary action, detecting your BPM. More advanced devices detect changes in the electrical current that passes over the skin to get an idea of your nervous system activity.

The Professional Viewpoint

A data scientist says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "delicate equilibrium" - while the rapidly advancing tech could potentially save lives, "identifying issues before we show symptoms", it could also turn us the tracked into the "concerned but fine".

He points out that newer wearables can perform tests like electrocardiograms (ECGs), which constantly monitor how healthy the heart is. They can flag if someone is experiencing a heart arrhythmia, where there is abnormal impulses in the heart causing an irregular heartbeat.

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

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

"I remain sceptical that being able to monitor so many things is such a positive development," he says.

A health researcher specialising in wearable tech echoes this sentiment. Her work into the effect of wearable tech on a specific group of individuals with health issues suggested a significant portion of those who were given devices to monitor their cardiac function experienced increased anxiety and were "more inclined to use healthcare resources".

She observed a cycle with her patients - they spotted a worrying figure on their watch. They felt anxious. Their heart rate increased. They got more worried. They re-examined the data, and their heart rate increased again.

"Upon viewing stats about ourselves that we don't really understand then, of course, we are going to seek clarification," the psychologist says. "We check, we obsess - it becomes a vicious cycle."