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An atmosphere of nervous excitement. I can see the chilled vapour emanating from my fellow runners as they execute the "about to run" wiggle on the start line.

A swift twitch of the hips.

I'm participating in my local Saturday morning race and I'm serious. The countdown begins...

Wait a second. I have to start my tracker. So does the person next to me.

The person in the line tuts. I refuse to go until… yes! GPS ready, and I'm running.

During the scramble, it's challenging to see a arm without a fitness tracker on it. And this isn't only us participants who rely on them.

This is a booming, massive market. Brands like Samsung Galaxy lead the market, each with an broad selection of different models to suit a range of budgets. According to how advanced the watch you select, prices can vary between an affordable sum to thousands of pounds.

"It makes me crazy, I can't stop checking."

"It reassures me… It's like a companion encouraging me."

"Stop telling me I've experienced a poor sleep."

A handful of the reactions I've had from fellow device users when I inquire what they think of theirs.

The Data Dilemma

My feelings on mine? Currently, annoying. It's indicating I'm off pace, causing me to question whether the trees I'm passing under are disrupting my satellite signal.

A vast number of us strap these small monitors onto our wrists and use them constantly, seemingly comfortable with the fact they're constantly tracking us.

A distant memory are the days when we relied on them solely to give us an estimation of our daily steps. Today, they can analyse our sleep quality, blood pressure, glucose levels, our body battery.

It's tricky to find a health indicator they fail to monitor.

But can they do what they claim to do? And are the statistics we scrutinise a accurate representation of reality? Do they boost our overall health, or do the plethora of measurements and constant notifications just contribute to our everyday anxiety?

Addiction or Aid?

"I do get a quite fixated with mine," a wearer reveals.

While she loves how her device records her exercise, she finds some of its other features "overwhelming" at times - a feeling initially realised during a pregnancy.

Prior to discovering she could put it into a specific mode, her smartwatch constantly alerted her she was being insufficiently energetic enough. Later on, the watch insists her she's had a restless night.

"I've got a six-month old, there's no point to be informed my sleep was poor," she says. "I know that perfectly well."

Why doesn't she just stop wearing it?

"I could, theoretically, but I've got this push-pull dynamic with it," she explains. "I love it for its fitness insights, but I'm unsure whether the additional features it can now do is possibly too much for me."

Inside the Device

Each model of smartwatch has its own unique way of tracking your vitals and analysing your data, but the most use detectors on the reverse of the watch.

They commonly shine minute LED lights onto your arm which can observe pulsation, identifying your pulse rate. Higher-end devices analyse changes in the skin conductance 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 "difficult line" - while the rapidly advancing tech could realistically aid early diagnosis, "spotting abnormalities before we feel unwell", it could also turn us the tracked into the "concerned but fine".

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

This does not mean someone is on the verge of a heart attack, but it can give an early warning they might be more susceptible of a heart problem in the years to come.

But how to make sense of these numbers is complex. The expert fears that as more functions are incorporated, people may not be able to fully understand their data.

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

A clinical psychologist studying wearable tech concurs. A study into the impact of wearable tech on a cohort of cardiovascular patients suggested a noticeable percentage 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 noted a pattern with her patients - they spotted a alarming metric on their watch. They felt anxious. Their pulse rose. They got more worried. They checked again, and their anxiety increased again.

"If we see numbers about ourselves that we lack context for then, understandably, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We check, we re-check - it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."