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A sense of nervous excitement. Apparent is the chilled vapour emanating from my fellow runners as they perform the "pre-race" wiggle on the start line.

A quick movement of the hips.

I'm participating in my local weekly parkrun event and I mean business. It's almost time...

Hold on. I have to start my tracker. The same goes for the guy beside me.

The person waiting expresses impatience. I won't start until… done! GPS ready, I'm off.

In the mele, it's challenging to find a arm without a fitness tracker on it. And it's not just us participants who wear them.

We're witnessing a thriving, multi-billion pound sector. Names like Apple Watch are prevalent, each with an broad range of different devices to suit a variety of budgets. Depending on how high tech the device you go for, price tags can range from an affordable sum to a small fortune.

"It drives me insane, it's impossible to stop checking."

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

"Please don't notify me I've experienced a restless night."

Just some of the reactions people have shared from like-minded tracker enthusiasts when I inquire what they think of theirs.

The Data Dilemma

My thoughts on mine? Currently, annoying. It's telling me I'm not hitting my target, making me wonder whether the trees I'm running below are interfering with my satellite signal.

A vast number of us attach these compact devices onto our arms and use them constantly, seemingly unconcerned with the fact they're constantly recording us.

Gone are the days when we depended on them exclusively to give us an idea of our pedometer reading. Today, they can measure our nightly rest, blood pressure, heart rate variability (HRV), our body battery.

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

But do they do what they say they do? And are the numbers we obsess over a accurate representation of the truth? Do they enhance our daily wellness, or do the multitude of readings and motivational messages just contribute to our daily stresses?

Addiction or Aid?

"I find myself getting a a little fixated with mine," a wearer confesses.

While she values how her device monitors her workouts, she finds some of its other capabilities "overwhelming" at times - a feeling that became apparent during a significant period.

Until she found out she could put it into a specific mode, her smartwatch kept telling her she was failing to be energetic enough. Later on, the watch keeps telling her she's had a poor sleep score.

"I have a young baby, it's unnecessary for me to be told I've not slept," she says. "I know that perfectly well."

Why doesn't she just remove it?

"It's possible, perhaps, but I've got this love-hate relationship with it," she says. "I love it for its fitness insights, I just wonder whether the additional features it can now do is maybe overkill for me."

Inside the Device

Every device of smartwatch has its own unique way of monitoring your health metrics and analysing your data, but the majority use sensors on the back of the watch.

They commonly shine small, green LED lights onto your arm which can detect capillary action, detecting your BPM. Sophisticated devices detect changes in the skin conductance that passes over the skin to assess your nervous system activity.

The Professional Viewpoint

A professor says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "difficult line" - while the continuously improving tech could actually prevent illness, "spotting abnormalities before we notice anything", it could also turn us watch wearers into the "concerned but fine".

He points out that the most advanced wearables can conduct tests like heart rhythm analysis, which continuously monitor how stable the heart is. They can notify if someone is experiencing an irregular rhythm, where there is irregular electrical activity in the heart causing an uneven pulse.

This does not mean someone is on the verge of a heart attack, but it can give an preliminary indication they might be more vulnerable of a heart problem in the long term.

But how to understand these numbers is complicated. The expert worries that as more functions are added, people may find it hard to fully understand their data.

"I remain sceptical that the ability to monitor so much data is such a good idea," he says.

A health researcher studying wearable tech concurs. A study into the impact of wearable tech on a cohort of heart condition patients suggested a minority of those who were given devices to monitor their heart health experienced increased anxiety and were "more inclined to use medical services".

She observed a cycle with her patients - they noticed a alarming metric on their watch. They became worried. Their heart rate increased. They got more worried. They looked a second time, and their reading increased again.

"Upon viewing data 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."