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There's a building tension. Apparent is the frosty air coming from my fellow runners as they perform the "starting line" shuffle on the starting line.

A quick movement of the hips.

I'm lined up for my local 5km community parkrun and I mean business. The countdown begins...

Oh, hang on. I need to start my watch. So does the person next to me.

The person in the line tuts. I refuse to go until… done! GPS ready, away I go.

In the mele, it's challenging to see a arm without a wearable on it. And it's not just us athletes who use them.

It's a booming, multi-billion dollar sector. Names like Apple Watch are prevalent, each with an extensive range of various devices to cater to a range of budgets. Based on how high tech the watch you select, price tags can vary between an affordable sum to a significant investment.

"It drives me insane, I can't stop checking."

"It reassures me… It's like a friend supporting me."

"I wish it wouldn't say I've experienced a poor sleep."

A small sample of the comments I've had from fellow smartwatch wearers when I ask what they think of theirs.

A Sea of Statistics

My feelings on my own device? At this moment, frustrating. It's telling me my speed is wrong, causing me to question whether the trees along my route are blocking my satellite signal.

Countless individuals of us strap these small monitors onto our arms and use them all day and night, seemingly at ease with the fact they're continuously monitoring us.

Gone are the days when we relied on them only to give us an idea of our step count. Currently, they can track our nightly rest, blood pressure, heart rate variability (HRV), our VO2 max.

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

But can they do what they say they do? And are the numbers we obsess over a faithful picture of our actual health? Do they boost our daily wellness, or do the avalanche of readings and motivational messages just increase our everyday anxiety?

Addiction or Aid?

"I do get a bit obsessed with mine," one user confesses.

While she loves how her device records her runs, she finds some of its other capabilities "excessive" at times - a feeling that became apparent during a major life event.

Until she found out she could adjust the settings, her smartwatch kept telling her she was being insufficiently productive enough. Now, the watch insists her she's had a restless night.

"I am caring for a six-month old, there's no point to be informed my sleep was poor," she says. "I'm acutely aware all too clearly."

Why doesn't she just stop wearing it?

"It's possible, I suppose, but I have this complicated dynamic with it," she continues. "I love it for its workout tracking, I just wonder whether the myriad other functions it can now do is perhaps too much for me."

The Technology Behind the Tracking

Every device of smartwatch has its own proprietary way of tracking your bodily functions and processing your data, but the majority use detectors on the reverse of the watch.

They typically project small, green LED lights onto your wrist which can detect blood flow, recording your heartbeat. More advanced devices detect changes in the electrical current that passes over the skin to assess your recovery state.

The Professional Viewpoint

One expert says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "delicate equilibrium" - while the ever-evolving tech could actually prevent illness, "detecting disease before we notice anything", it could also turn us watch wearers into the "anxious healthy".

He points out that some of the latest wearables can perform tests like heart rhythm analysis, which regularly monitor how stable 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 about to have a heart attack, but it can give an preliminary indication they might be more vulnerable of a heart problem in the future.

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

"I have some doubts that the ability to monitor so many things is such a positive development," he says.

A clinical psychologist studying wearable tech echoes this sentiment. Her work into the influence of wearable tech on a specific group of heart condition patients suggested a minority of those who were given devices to monitor their cardiac function experienced heightened worry and were "more inclined to use doctor's time".

She noted a vicious circle with her patients - they noticed a alarming metric on their watch. They grew concerned. Their BPM went up. They got even more concerned. They re-examined the data, and their heart rate increased again.

"If we see numbers about ourselves that we don't really understand then, understandably, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We monitor, we obsess - it becomes a feedback loop."