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There's a feeling of anticipation. Visible is the frosty air coming from my competitors as they do the "starting line" jiggle on the beginning point.

A quick twitch of the hips.

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

Wait a second. I need to start my tracker. As does the person beside me.

The person in the line expresses impatience. I refuse to go until… yes! Connection established, away I go.

In the mele, it's challenging to see a wrist without a fitness tracker on it. And it's not just us athletes who rely on them.

This is a explosive, massive sector. Brands like Apple Watch lead the market, each with an wide array of various models to cater to a variety of budgets. Depending on how advanced the watch you go for, prices can range from an affordable sum to a significant investment.

"It drives me insane, I'm unable to switch off."

"It reassures me… It feels like a companion supporting me."

"Stop telling me about a restless night."

Just some of the reactions I've received from like-minded tracker enthusiasts when I question what they feel about theirs.

The Data Dilemma

My feelings on mine? Currently, annoying. It's telling me I'm not hitting my target, making me wonder whether the trees along my route are interfering with my location tracking.

Countless individuals of us strap these small monitors onto our arms and wear them 24/7, ostensibly unconcerned with the fact they're perpetually recording us.

Gone are the days when we depended on them solely to give us an estimation of our step count. Currently, they can measure our nightly rest, blood pressure, heart rate variability (HRV), our body battery.

It's tricky to find a bodily function they aren't designed to measure.

But can they do what they say they do? And are the data points we analyse a true reflection of our actual health? Do they enhance our mental and physical wellbeing, or do the multitude of metrics and cheerleading alerts just contribute to our everyday anxiety?

Addiction or Aid?

"I find myself getting a bit obsessed with mine," one user reveals.

While she appreciates how her device records her exercise, she finds some of its other features "excessive" at times - a feeling initially realised during a significant period.

Prior to discovering she could adjust the settings, her smartwatch repeatedly informed her she was not being active enough. In a new phase, the watch frequently reports her she's had a restless night.

"I am caring for a infant, there's no point to be told I'm tired," she says. "That fact is all too clearly."

Is it not possible to just stop wearing it?

"It's possible, theoretically, but I'm in this push-pull dynamic with it," she explains. "I appreciate it for its exercise data, but I'm unsure whether the additional features it can now do is perhaps too much for me."

The Technology Behind the Tracking

Each model of smartwatch has its own unique way of measuring your bodily functions and processing your data, but the vast bulk use sensors on the reverse of the watch.

They commonly emit minute LED lights onto your skin which can detect blood flow, recording your BPM. More advanced devices analyse changes in the electrical current that runs through the skin to assess your stress levels.

A Fine Balance

A professor says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "difficult line" - while the continuously improving tech could actually aid early diagnosis, "identifying issues before we notice anything", it could also turn us the tracked into the "concerned but fine".

He points out that the most advanced wearables can carry out tests like medical-grade monitoring, which constantly monitor how stable the heart is. They can notify if someone is experiencing atrial fibrillation (AF), where there is erratic signals in the heart causing an arrhythmia.

This does not necessarily indicate someone is about to have a heart attack, but it can give an preliminary indication they might be more susceptible of a stroke in the years to come.

But how to understand these readings is not straightforward. The expert concerns that as further capabilities are introduced, people may struggle to fully understand their data.

"I have some doubts that the ability to monitor so much data is such a good idea," he says.

A clinical psychologist studying cardiology agrees. A study into the effect of wearable tech on a set of individuals with health issues suggested a minority of those who were given devices to monitor their heart health experienced greater stress and were "had a higher tendency to use medical services".

She observed a pattern with her patients - they spotted a alarming metric on their watch. They grew concerned. Their BPM rose. They got even more concerned. They checked again, and their anxiety rose further.

"If we see numbers about ourselves that we don't really understand then, naturally, we are going to become concerned," the psychologist says. "We look, we obsess - it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."