A fusion of the highly successful methods of harmonic and statistical linearization is used as a first approximation in determining, either iteratively or via a nonlinear integral equation, the effects of higher harmonics and non-Gaussian distortion terms on the second-order statistics of a wide variety of nonlinear stochastic differential equations perturbed by some linear combination of Gaussian noise and a periodic deterministic/stochastic excitation. Physical a posteriori applicability criteria are presented which justify when these higher order effects may be neglected. A simple modification of this statistical-harmonic linearization procedure based upon the Fokker-Planck variance is proposed.